Mapping the Pipeline Education Series

This education series is part of Policing Justice, which is on view at PICA from February 23 – May 19, 2024.

Please join us on Saturday, April 6, 2024, for Mapping the Pipeline Education Series, created and organized by Buddy Terry and Master Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr.

The Statistics Behind Mapping the Pipeline

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm

Mapping the Pipeline charts some areas and zones for consideration when trying to imagine and make tangible the “School to Prison Pipeline.” While not an exhaustive exploration of this topic it both symbolically and statistically seeks to explore the premise for viewers to get a glimpse at how this might be seen. A unique characteristic of this work is the statistical backing to the regional and institutional sites within the larger landscape of the project. Featuring the work of Adrian Allorant and Lily Copenagle and their use of census data and other statistics available on public websites, representations of this information were created and embedded into the artwork. This panel features a conversation that seeks to unpack the process of how these figures were derived and what they mean in the overall work and exhibition.

Student Engagement at Jefferson High

1:45 pm - 2:45 pm

While Mapping the Pipeline might be interpreted as inferring schools are to blame for the struggles students face, that is not the primary intention. In the artist's larger body of work much of the focus is on youth engagement in and out of school settings. The premise of direct student engagement to learn skills, make art, and delve deeply into consideration of topics from local to global is essential to developing confident and well informed young people. This is most clearly seen in the Jefferson site with all of the houses situated across the neighborhood region. These houses were designed by students at Jefferson high at an afterschool workshop in which they were compensated to attend. This model of offering paid workshops is a consistent part of the artist’s practice and will be further explored in this panel featuring Zemaj Mitchell-Johnson whose work is featured in the show and has worked with the artist since 2019. A general synopsis of the current Jefferson Modernization will also be provided.

Those We Remember

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Mapping the Pipeline was a large-scale collaborative project featuring the work and stories of several folks who have been incarcerated. While several story tellers are estranged and or have passed away, there are two specific contributors who are being notably memorialized in the work. Armon Poostpasand, co-founder of Tin Can Phone, personally interviewed 12 men at Columbia River Correctional Intuition and serves as the core of the narrative component of the larger work. Including being published in a compendium available for viewers to take away.  Derrick Clark’s story, word, and legacy is featured in the second publication that has been produced for takeaway. Both of these young men are no longer with us and their lives and stories are significant to the collaborators of this project. This panel will feature Sarah Miles, Derrick’s mother, and La Verne Kludsikofsky, Armons grandmother, who will share more about the rich lives of these young men.