Angola Prison Art: Captivity, Creativity, and Consumerism
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2006
Description
Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola holds a biannual Arts and Crafts Festival featuring handmade work by inmates. In addition to introducing innovations into vernacular prison art forms, Angola inmates find enormous value in creating works that embody or mimic the everyday images and goods so readily available in the outside world. Such work involves layered acts of appropriation, allowing inmates to sustain a social integrity that, to some degree, neutralizes a status tied solely to incarceration.
Citation Information
Schrift, Melissa. 2006. Angola Prison Art: Captivity, Creativity, and Consumerism. Journal of American Folklore. Vol.119(473). https://doi.org/10.1353/jaf.2006.0035 ISSN: 0021-8715