The Free on the Inside group exhibition is a showcase of both literary and visual art. The visual artwork was selected from over 100 submissions from an open call, with the only instructive prompt being the phrase “Free on the Inside”. Artist’s interpretations of that phrase were left up to them, and varying imagery, subjects, materials, and statements were submitted and selected.
In conjunction with the selected visual artworks, poetry from the participants of the Free on the Inside writing program were selected by it’s founder Eccentrich Richardson, an award winning spoken word artist who has worked with these inmates within the prisons since June 2016. The program started with 60 inmates, which then grew to about 200 in the Everglades Correctional Institution, where the selected poems are from. Free on the Inside is a program that brings writing workshops, seminars, and then open mics into these facilities. The open mic is when the participants can share their poems, songs, and stories. It enriches their time of incarnation, and aids in the transition back into society, in an attempt to create true rehabilitation, thus providing them with an experience to be free on the inside. This Exhibition is also in celebration of National Poetry Month which is recognized annually every April.