PAINT ME A ROAD OUT OF HERE

Followed by a discussion with Catherine Gund and professor and activist Gina Dent; professor and art historian Dr. Cheryl Finley will moderate

In 1971, artist Faith Ringgold made a monumental painting for the Women’s House of Detention on Rikers Island in New York. Engaging and empowering audiences, especially those experiencing systemic discrimination, had always been important to her and she sought to create an affirmative vision for the women. Fifty years later, artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, who at the age of twenty-five gave birth in prison, bands together with Ringgold and an eccentric bunch of activists, politicians, other artists, and corrections officers, to free the mural after it had been literally whitewashed. Following its journey from Rikers Island to the Brooklyn Museum, this film is a wild tale of two artists who challenge the same powerful, oppressive institutions with their artwork, their voices, and their shared persistent goals.