Benjamin Todd Wills | Cell Drawings
NOV. 20 - JAN. 5, 2020
When he began writing to inmates, many of the first responses came from people who had been housed in solitary confinement. Over the years, Wills has collected a large number of cell drawings. The drawings all depict essentially identical spaces, but they come on different colored papers, some with 3D shading, some as birds’ eye views with everything labeled. “Bed mat is about 1½ inches thick,” one reads.
Wills took one of these drawings and built it to its real-life dimensions. Stepping inside feels like entering a strange, cartoon world, where one is immediately aware of the confines of the space—eight feet long, six feet wide and ten feet high.
This exhibition is generously underwritten by Reaching Out from Within volunteers at the Ellsworth Correctional Facility
About Ben
Benjamin Wills is an artist based in Lawrence, Kansas. Rooted in nostalgia, environment, and social justice, his projects generate a contemporary portrait of American institutions. Wills examines how art operates as a narrative device while considering how electronic and digital systems engage with the physicality and materiality of art and community. Through website construction, digital cataloging, creative coding, and social media functionality, his work is interested in the intersections between poetics, labor, and education.
In 2019, his project Airplanes received a Rocket Grant, funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation. Airplanes, which explores the identity of American inmates, is on view at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA through January, 2020. He is currently the Catron Visiting Professor of Art at Washburn University in Topeka, KS, teaching sculpture, digital fabrication and foundations. For the last two years he has been a Charlotte Street Studio Resident.
Special Programming
Lunch & Learn | Cell Spaces
November 20; Noon - 1pm
Salina Art Center, 242 S. Santa Fe
FREE and open to everyone
Learn what decisions go into creating spaces for incarceration and how community norms are listened to and incorporated. Our Lunch & Learn panelists are Jeff Lane, architect with TreanorHL, (the firm developing a plan for jail expansion in Salina), LaNay Meier, member of the Saline County Citizens for Jail Reform, and Janell Murphey, certified mediator and administrator of Salina Initiative for Restorative Justice and former policewoman.
Lunch & Learn is FREE on the third Wednesday of each month. Guests are encouraged to bring a sack lunch and enjoy this short, informal learning opportunity. Lunch & Learn is made possible through generous Salina Art Center Business Partners.
Incarcerated People and Human Dignity | Community Discussion
December 4; 7pm
Salina Art Center, 242 S. Santa Fe
FREE and open to everyone
Bob Bow and Joan Jackson, volunteers with Reaching Out from Within, join artist Benjamin Todd Wills to discuss issues of incarceration, focusing on art and storytelling as powerful tools for inmates as they journey toward self-acceptance and reaching out to others in order to become healthier, productive members of a community.
This FREE discussion is made possible through generous Salina Art Center members, donors, and exhibition underwriters.
First Friday Artist Reception
December 6; 5-7pm
Remarks from Benjamin Todd Wills at 6pm
Salina Art Center 242 2. Santa Fe
FREE and open to everyone