Workshop: Reimagine Our Communities: Poetry, Poster Making, and Prison Abolition

Free poster-making workshop with Boneta-Marie Mabo and Ruby Wharton.

Prison abolition requires us to reimagine our communities without relying on policing, prisons, and punishment, creating a more just, equitable, and compassionate world rooted in principles of care and collective liberty. Join Brisbane-based artists and prison abolitionists Boneta-Marie Mabo and Ruby Wharton to reimagine our communities through creative approaches to poetry, poster making, and prison abolition at the Institute of Modern Art.

Free and open to all, the workshop accompanies the socially engaged exhibition You’ll Know It When You Feel It. The IMA Courtyard will be activated with a new banner made by women and girls supported by prison-advocacy organisation Sisters Inside. A second venue, at Fortitude Valley State Secondary College, which can be accessed outside school hours, will display posters made by students.

About the Exhibition:

Unveiling the ineptitude of ‘official records’, You’ll Know It When You Feel It is a socially engaged art project that seeks to resist bureaucratic representations of women whose lives intersect with the prison industrial complex. Co-created by Brisbane based artist Raphaela Rosella, this intimate work has emerged over fifteen years alongside several women in her life. From six-minute phone calls to handwritten letters that circulate between Rosella, her friends, family members, and loved ones, the multi-authored exhibition You’ll Know It When You Feel It examines the value of their co-created archive as a site of resistance.

Presented in partnership with Sisters Inside, You’ll Know It When You Feel It will be accompanied by a series of community-engaged programs led by contemporary Meriam/Munbarra artist and prison abolitionist Boneta-Marie Mabo.