PerSister / Artist Video Interviews

During the run of the museum's exhibition PerSister: Incarcerated Women of Louisiana, Newcomb's staff had the opportunity to capture on film the unique and special exchanges between some PerSisters and their artists. These videos hare not only been an opportunity to revisit this impactful show, but also serve as an important reminder that the issues facing incarcerated women are still ongoing and urgent. We invite you to continue to engage with this impactful show through the conversations below.

Interview with PerSister Syrita Steib

In this “Per(Sister)” interview, exhibition co-creator Syrita Steib reflects on the show’s four major themes: 1) the root causes of female incarceration 2) the impact of incarcerating mothers 3) the physical and behavioral health toll of incarceration and 4) the challenges and opportunities to reentry. As the Executive Director of Operation Restoration, a non-profit organization based in New Orleans that supports women and girls impacted by incarceration, Syrita also shares her perspective on the community this exhibition represents.

A Remembrance for PerSister Bobbie Jean Johnson

One of the specific issues faced in Per(Sister), the continued physical health toll of incarceration, hit close to home this past year as our community lost PerSister Bobbie Jean Johnson who bravely shared her story with us shortly after her release from prison.

Bobbie Jean Johnson was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder using a coerced confession in 1977 at the age of 19. She was sentenced to life in prison, and after serving 41 years at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel, Bobbie Jean was finally released on February 8, 2018, to start a new life. She passed away due to health complications on October 25, 2019.

In this video Bobbie Jean meets artist Rontherin Ratliff and sees the piece he created in honor of her story, "All Black & Blue, Bruises of a Queen's Crown", for the first time. We invite you all to watch, listen, and remember Bobbie Jean.

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A special thanks to our curator Laura Blereau for collecting additional interviews to better tell Bobbie Jean's story in full and for crafting this beautiful remembrance of PerSister Johnson. To learn more about Bobbie Jean and those organizations who were critical in advocating for her release, please follow Innocence Project New Orleans and The Promise of Justice Initiative.

Interview with PerSister Wendi Cooper and Artist Tammy Mercure

Over the last decade Wendi Cooper has tirelessly advocated for the LGBTQ+ community. As a community organizer for the NO Justice Project in New Orleans, she provided key testimony in a federal lawsuit that successfully challenged Louisiana’s Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (CANS, RS 14:89.2) law, securing the removal of more than 700 women from the sex offender registry in 2013. More recently in the role of a program coordinator at Operation Restoration she has also initiated the CANS Can’t Stand campaign which aims to liberate those still affected by the law. In her “Per(Sister)” interview with photographer Tammy Mercure, Wendi speaks boldly from personal experience about the intersections between criminal justice and American slavery, particularly as it relates to Louisiana transgender women of color.

For more information about the Crime Against Nature statute in Louisiana visit the Center for Constitutional Rights ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/crimes-against-nature-solicitation-cans-litigation#

Statement by Tammy Mercure, on her artistic response to Wendi Cooper’s experience:
I was excited to work with Wendi on this project. I had met her briefly making photographs for Operation Restoration where she is Programs Coordinator.

I listened to Wendi’s interview and then spoke with her in person about making the artwork. She spoke about being a slave to the State of Louisiana because of the Crimes Against Nature statutes and how she would like to use the metaphor of slavery in America. She spoke specifically of shackles and on several occasions, spoke about art that is raw, making an impact, work that represents horrific events.

I also wanted to show Wendi as the powerful force she is. During the photo shoot, she talked about being at a place in her life and at an age where she is ready to fight.

I am looking forward to continuing to be engaged with Wendi by providing photographs of her events as she continues her work. She was a key figure in lawsuit that removed 700 women from the sex offender registry and now, she is tackling getting the Crime Against Nature by Solicitation law completely repealed.

Footnotes
*The Crime Against Nature statute outlaws “unnatural carnal copulation” which has been defined by Louisiana courts as anal and oral sex. While it is no longer constitutional for Louisiana to criminalize consensual oral and anal sex between adults, the state, under CANS, may still criminalize the solicitation and performance of oral and anal sex for money.
Until recently, a CANS conviction carried harsher penalties than a prostitution conviction. The penalties have now been equalized, but because CANS used to be a felony, many people still have prior CANS convictions on their criminal records.”

Interview with PerSister Syrita Steib and Artist Anastasia Pelias

In 2016, PerSister Syrita Steib co-founded Operation Restoration, a non-profit organization based in New Orleans that supports women and girls impacted by incarceration to recognize their full potential, restore their lives, and discover new possibilities. Operation Restoration is committed to providing currently and formerly incarcerated women with the resources necessary to sustainably transition home through higher education, employment training, job placement, case management, and advocacy. In her “Per(Sister)” interview with painter Anastasia Pelias, Syrita Steib reflects on the impact of socially-engaged artistic practice and the healing power of music.

Statement by Anastasia Pelias, on her artistic response to Syrita Steib’s experience:

A painting about Syrita, for Syrita. Listening to her sweet voice telling her story: past and present. Listening to the music she listened to on her Sony Walkman while she was incarcerated.

The dimensions of the canvas are 67 x 67 inches, the measurement of Syrita’s height and wingspan. My intention in making this painting was to express the essence of Syrita. Female. Fighter. A relentless advocate for women, an impassioned mother. An unstoppable force of nature.

Interview with PerSister Earlneishka Johnson and Artist Lee Deigaard

In this video, Earlneishka reflects on the transformative power of heart-centered storytelling, while reflecting on her collaboration and friendship with artist Lee Deigaard. Statement by Lee Deigaard, on her artistic response to Earlneishka Johnson’s experience: I was immediately struck by Earlneishka’s empathy and her commitment to fairness. She wants to help other people, stand up, and speak for them when they can’t be heard. She was a high school athlete; in many ways these are the values of sports teams and team captains. Her time incarcerated comprised 1/12 of her young life at the time. 21 months, and she turned 21 inside. With this piece, I hope to pay tribute to her inner and outer beauty without muffling the harsh conditions she and others she described have endured. The central blood moon alludes to the passage of time: the measuring of sentences by months and women’s menstrual cycles. It is a symbol of constancy. Earlneishka’s image in the moon’s shadows references her strength and hard-won wisdom as well as her potential. She reaches out to connect, to help. In her interview, she spoke movingly of women giving birth in the prison system, miscarriages, even after release, and lack of prenatal care while incarcerated, as well as giving babies up immediately after briefly holding them in handcuffs. The specific trials of women in incarceration are enormous bodily and emotional stresses and sources of PTSD and grief. She said, simply, “We [women] are where you come from,” as she described gender-based excessive use of force and institutional failures of basic compassion. ‘Neisha’ describes herself as a baby when she entered the system. Her figure curled in the moon’s shadow represents her unfolding future as a person. She explained what it’s like to need basic things that must be purchased. If your family cannot get money to you, you look for ways to earn it. She cut off and sold her long hair and braided other women’s hair. Around the central moon, hair arranged like chain link fencing and molecular forms relating to the stress and fear of incarceration and chronic shortage of menstrual supplies resemble hive and honeycomb or trellis-like networks. Adrenaline is part of the fear and flight response when under extreme duress. Connections with others keep us whole. The paper petals and flowers are a collaboration made from Neisha’s words and handwriting, torn into fragments in a companionable process of cathartic symbolic relief. The remnants became petals; together we made flowers.

Interview with PerSister Dolita Wilhike and Artist Epaul Julien

As a formerly incarcerated parent, PerSister Dolita Wilhike works as an advocate for homeless youth in downtown New Orleans. Over the last decade she has built a social support network for herself and others that artist Epaul Julien describes as “revolutionary”. In her "Per(Sister)" interview with Julien, Dolita describes the challenges of reentry that many women face upon reentering into society. Statement by Epaul Julien, on his artistic response to Dolita Wilhike’s experience: In 1865 when the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, slavery was abolished; however, forced labor has remained legal under the circumstances of punishment for crimes. This artwork takes on the American flag as a compositional framework, and it brings a new interpretation to the stripes it bears by drawing visual associations to prison bars, chain gangs, and systems of confinement that have been in use since the middle passage and colonial era. 
 Historic imagery sourced from the Internet captures the movement of imprisoned bodies across the Americas, and serves as a background for Dolita Wilhike’s portrait, in which she doubles as the political activist and scholar Angela Davis. “13th” attempts to express the raw determination, intelligence and strength of all women struggling for equality and freedom on American soil - particularly the generations of families who are suffering economically in Louisiana, seemingly with no end in sight. The linear brushwork suggests a compressed passage of time that functions as a loop.


Interview with PerSister Gilda Caesar and Artist Keith Duncan

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, it flooded the Orleans Parish Prison, which housed about 6,500 people including PerSister Gilda Caesar, whose 3-month sentence was completed six days earlier, on August 23. In her "Per(Sister)" interview with painter Keith Duncan, Gilda recalls her experience of a delayed release November 16, the separation of her family, and the chaos of being transported on August 31 to a men’s facility, the Louisiana State Penitentiary some 135 miles away.

Statement by Keith Duncan, on his artistic response to Gilda Caesar’s experience:
“Mass incarceration is, ultimately, a problem of troublesome entanglements. To war seriously against the disparity in unfreedom requires a war against a disparity in resources. And to war against a disparity in resources is to confront a history in which both the plunder and the mass incarceration of blacks are accepted commonplaces. Our current debate over criminal-justice reform pretends that it is possible to disentangle ourselves without significantly disturbing the other aspects of our lives, that one can extract the thread of mass incarceration from the larger tapestry of racist American policy.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration”, 2015, The Atlantic

The patterned fabric in my paintings is used symbolically. For “Gilda’s Story” I used a flower pattern with roses that feels very “downhome” and Southern. This is a politically poetic painting and it engages Gilda’s real-life story in her own words, as she wrote them down for me during a recent visit to her house in November 2018.

The lettering at the top is in Old English font and stylistically the text has a dialog with the American flag bunting which frames the piece, as if it were stage curtains for a grand presentation. The paper calendar at the bottom marks the dates in 2005 when Gilda served time in Orleans Parish Prison, including when she was transported to Angola Prison on a bus following Hurricane Katrina. She waded through chest-level waters and witnessed terrible things.

Flying the flag upside down is signal of distress. Right now America is at time of crisis and war when it comes to discussing social-political issues. The upside-down flag in this painting symbolizes injustice in the penal system and carceral state. I learn more and more each day about how mass incarceration is a profit-making industry. A lot of the people incarcerated are no so-called “real criminals”; many have been dealing with drug use or drug abuse, not murder or robbery. No doubt, there are crimes committed, but mass incarceration is caused by taking the “let’s lock them up” attitude, rather than rehabilitation and solving the underlying issues of systemic racism and poverty.