Michelle Jones: Point of Triangulation

September 26 – October 1, 2019

“Frederick Douglass argued that the photograph is a social force that can sway the heart by way of the eye. In the case of the formerly incarcerated, a photograph’s real work is to demand that others see not only the participant’s race, sex, gender, real or suspected criminality, but their humanity, their right to citizenship and freedom, their right to be free from sexual violation and discrimination and to be free of racialized law enforcement practices, hyper-surveillance, and murder by police.

Stigma represents a long-game social control mechanism that targets predominantly young African American men and women as well as all incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. There are great costs—both internal and external—that people may never understand when they stigmatize another, leaving a mark upon the psyche and spirit of the other person. Point of Triangulation challenges viewers to confront the stigma and bias they may hold against incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. We have the right to a different story than the ones others create for us.”

— Michelle Jones, BA ’19

Michelle Jones is a third-year doctoral student in the American Studies program at NYU. In her work, she excavates the collateral consequences of criminal convictions for people and families who have been directly impacted by mass incarceration. While she was incarcerated, Jones published and presented her research findings to dispel notions about the reach and intellectual capacity of justice-involved women and also presented legislative testimony on a reentry alternative she created for long-term incarcerated people that was approved by the Indiana State Interim Committee on the Criminal Code.

Jones is a member of the advisory boards of the Lumina Foundation and the Urban Institute and is chairwoman of the board of Constructing Our Future, a reentry alternative for women created by incarcerated women in Indiana. She has been named a Beyond the Bars Fellow, a Research Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, and a Ford Foundation Bearing Witness Fellow with Art for Justice, SOZE Right of Return Fellow, Code for America Fellow, and a Mural Arts Fellow. Jones is currently under contract with The New Press to publish the history of Indiana’s carceral institutions for women with fellow incarcerated and formerly incarcerated scholars. As an artist, Jones is interested in finding ways to funnel her research pursuits into theater, dance, and photography. The Duchess of Stringtown, a play that Jones co-authored with Anastzia Schmid was produced in Indianapolis and New York City.