The ReEntry Lab has been selected for a 2024-25 Liberal Arts Engagement Hub Residency, in partnership with the University of Minnesota Department of English.
We’re excited for this opportunity to engage with the academic community to continue growing our work of finding and making pathways and bridges for writers and other artists leaving incarceration.
Justice-impacted artists face an array of obstacles to participation in a range of social spheres and activities even after they are released from prison. The ReEntry Lab – an organization designed to explore opportunities for connection between justice-impacted artists and the thriving network of literary organizations and institutions in Minnesota – will use their Hub residency to create an intentional, supportive space for justice-impacted artists to convene with one another and with members of the University of Minnesota community in order to help them navigate the difficult experience of post-incarceration.
This project, in partnership with the Department of English, will include three components. First, the ReEntry Lab will facilitate a monthly writing “workshop” that will be accessible to justice-impacted writers. Second, The ReEntry Lab will facilitate exchanges between justice-impacted artists and other faculty, departments, and programs within the College of Liberal Arts, many of which are focusing explicitly on criminal justice, the carceral system, and the social practices that marginalize and exclude the justice-impacted community. Third, The ReEntry Lab will facilitate a public reading at the end of the project period, in which justice-impacted writers will have the opportunity to share their work with a broad audience.