2019 Finalist

Jackie Summell

The Solitary Garden Project utilizes the tools of prison abolition, art, permaculture and restorative justice to facilitate exchanges between incarcerated people and the outside world. Gardens created through the project are the size of a solitary confinement cell and are constructed from chattel crops, illuminating the connection between slavery and our modern-day criminal justice system. The gardens are designed and tended by incarcerated and formally incarcerated people through written exchanges, growing calendars and design templates. Ms. Sumell is working to tour the garden concept nationally, and to develop an online platform that will tell the Solitary Gardeners’ stories. By lifting up these powerful narratives and working in coalition with partners at Voice of the Experienced (VOTE), Solitary Watch and Promise of Justice, Solitary Gardens can help to create the cultural change needed to catalyze policy change for criminal justice reform.