I spent time over the past month at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Shakopee, working with women in the recovery program and the restorative justice program. I made three trips. The first, just to offer background about A Peace of My Mind and make an invitation to share a response to the question, “What has helped you move toward healing?” The second day, we set up a studio and gathered the responses and made the portraits. The final day, we shared their stories back to them and talked about the experience of participating.

It was a powerful engagement. It’s an interesting process to step into a new and unfamiliar space and ask people to share honest and vulnerable experiences for the world to see.  And the overwhelming response this time (and every time) was gratitude for taking time to hear their stories.

In addition to our usual studio process, we experimented with some video footage, recording audio of their responses and pairing them with video portraits.

I’ll just share a few comments from our community conversation after showing the women the stories we made (some of these are paraphrases):

“When I look at the photo you took, it reminds me how much progress I’ve made since I came here.”

“A lot of us feel like our voices have been silenced. This gave us our voices back.”

“Thank you for believing we had something worth listening to.”

“This is a part of my healing.”

“I spent a lot of time thinking about this question.”

“I think I’m going to be slower to judge after seeing all of these stories. We all have wounds we are dealing with.”

“I know I’m not alone.”

There is power in sharing our stories. There is healing and hope in being seen and heard. Whatever is true today…that is not the end of our story.

Some of the stories from this series will be a part of a new exhibit called SOBR, and we will host an open house at our studio to showcase the work on January 22. You can learn more and register to attend at this link.

Many thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board and the arts and cultural heritage fund for supporting this work.

John Noltner is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.