Michener Museum Awarded Transformative Grant For 'Beyond These Walls'

DOYLESTOWN, PA — The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage has announced "major support" for the upcoming exhibit, "Behind These Walls: Reckoning With Incarceration" at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown.

The exhibition will transform how the museum, a Bucks County jail turned into an art institution in the 1980s, interprets and presents the historical significance of its site, according to museum officials.

A diverse advisory committee led by community leader Marlene Pray will initiate the project by considering the legacy of the Bucks County jail alongside contemporary questions around justice, equity, and mass incarceration.

"We're excited to receive this significant support of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage as we continue to evolve as a venue where the people of our region creatively explore local history and public engagement," said Vail Garvin, Michener's executive director.

According to Garvin, the museum is commissioning an installation from jackie sumell, an award-winning internationally-known artist whose work critiques incarceration by foregrounding and humanizing incarcerated people. sumell will collaborate with community volunteers to plant and tend a "solitary garden" designed in correspondence with an incarcerated person. The solidary garden will be the size and layout of a standard prison cell, but it will be overtaken by plants chosen by the incarcerated "solitary gardener."

"Behind These Walls: Reckoning with Incarceration" begins as the Michener celebrates its 35th anniversary year and furthers the museum’s commitment to acting as an inclusive and dynamic cultural hub for Bucks County that invites all people to participate in the creative legacy of the Greater Delaware Valley.

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, dedicated to fostering a vibrant cultural community in Greater Philadelphia. The center invests in ambitious, imaginative, and catalytic work that showcases the region’s cultural vitality, enhances public life, and engages in an exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice with a broad network of cultural practitioners and leaders.