Impact

Conversations    



The Getty Center: discussion with Catherine Gund (director), Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter (film participant, excutive producer), and Ashley Blakeney executive director of Crenshaw Dairy Mart; moderated by Kristin Juarez (senior research specialist for Academic Outreach at the Getty Research Institute)



Harvard Hutchins Center: discussion with Catherine Gund (director), Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter (film participant, executive producer), and Yara Shahidi (executive procuer); moderated by Sarah Lewis


Lessons from PAINT ME A ROAD OUT HERE

Director Catherine Gund on why the film is a parable: the story of getting a painting out of Rikers Island Jail  contains every strategy it will take to get the women and gender-nonconforming people out of Rikers, and all people out of all facilities. Everything social movements need to succeed is here.  

5 Key Ingredients for Social Change
What does it take to make change? Proven methods.

Urgency
“We only had two weeks to get the painting out of Rikers. If we said, “You’ve got one year to get 200 women out safely so find out what they need and provide that, people would respond. That’s not very many people. Urgency works.”

“We keep saying ‘someday’ like in five years or in ten years. If we were half as urgent about creating community-based solutions as we are about building cages, we’d already be moving. Urgency gives people no excuse to delay justice.”

Accountability
“Most commissioners, most mayors say, ‘That problem is for the next person.’ In this case, Michael said, ‘Okay someone has to make the decision to restore this whitewashed painting,’ and he made it. Twenty-five years later, Vinny said, ‘Someone has to save this painting from oblivion,’ and he chose to be that person. That’s accountability. 

“Someone has to say the buck stops here. The mayor. The head of the Department of Corrections. The governor. Somebody. That’s true for getting a painting out. It’s true for getting people out.”

Community
“We had the government, the mayor’s office, the mayor’s wife. We had philanthropies like Art for Justice. We had the artist herself, Faith Ringgold. Other artists, activists, the corrections system, the museum. Everyone aligned, in those two weeks, to get the painting out.”

“You need all of those people in this movement. We can’t afford to say the activists are too loud, the artists too disconnected, the philanthropists just bring money, the government’s useless. Every piece matters. That’s the only way this movement is going to succeed.

Plan
“We didn’t just say, ‘Take the painting out of the jail and put it in the street.’ We knew where it could go. It had been loaned to the Brooklyn Museum before. The Museum  knew how to insure it, climate-control it, make it accessible. We had plan for it once it got out.”

“That’s what abolition needs, a plan. Community-based drug treatment, mental health care, housing, crisis response. You can’t just say, ‘Shut it all down.’ It won’t happen that way. We need to know: Where are people going to go? What support systems are in place for them? How do we secure shared safety for everyone?”

Value
“As soon as the painting was valued, it was released. Vinny said, ‘It’s hanging in a back hallway, and it’s worth millions of dollars? And I don’t even know it’s there?’ Suddenly, they cared. If we valued the people inside, or children at the border, people living in the streets, people hungry, people dying for lack of healthcare, we wouldn’t treat them the way we do.”

“We wouldn’t paint people over, hang them out of reach, put them behind plexiglass. But that’s exactly what happens, people are erased, hidden, dehumanized. When something is valued, it’s protected.”

About Our Campaign


Paint Me a Road Out of Here seeks to expand and influence public knowledge of Black female artists; women, girls, and gender expansive people in the carceral system; and the BeyondRosies and ShutRikers campaigns in New York City. As part of its social impact campaign, 
Paint Me a Road Out of Here will inspire audiences to take direct action in their communities and support all system-impacted individuals in meaningful ways.

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