NOTES FROM THE VILLAGE is a bi-quarterly, community-sourced, digital correspondence that reaches more than 250 incarcerated adult citizens of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities. NOTES FROM THE VILLAGE helps to create and exchange of insights, information, and inspirations between people.
A highly eclectic 16:14 minute video overview of Notes From The Village in which the writer traces the origins, the ingenuity, and the saga of black African manhood from Africa through 400 years of slavery and mass incarceration, and his own outreach to and engagement with these men. The writer also poses a challenge to Christian America and all people of faith.
An intense, multi-layered 2:49 minute video clip featuring a sonic montage of recorded calls from men incarcerated in America’s prison system. A wide variety of topics are highlighted in this chorus of voices.
Overview – LinkPholio
LinkPholio is an online digital tool designed to help provide access and connection between those on the inside and those on the outside. The underlying aim of LinkPholio is to help people connect for resourcing, restoration, reentry services, and rehabilitative support. As “a portal to the other side of the wall,” LinkPholio helps to foster and facilitate greater opportunities for connections between free-world people of faith and celled people of faith.
A 15:03 video designed to help trigger conversations that inspire more awareness, advocacy, and activism among faith communities on issues of incarceration in America. The video is interlaced with several podcast clips wherein the writer addresses a particular question about the American penal system. This video is accompanied with a 2-page 23-questions handout and is recommended for group discussions.
A 2:13 video loop that highlights the human condition and the humanity of incarcerated men.
This aspect of the Capstone features a series of 10 photo essays.
The goal of the essays is to accentuate dualism, to highlight the dichotomies, and to demonstrate the inter-dimensionality of all things.
As to the photos centering on urban outreach and the American prison system, the goal is to help reclaim, demonstrate, and showcase the other realities of their humanity and to challenge stayed long-notions of justice, society, and punishment of human prisoners.
A 1:11 minute video clip of a 6-image photo essay that traces Chad’s carceral bondages from the time of his African slave ancestors, fettered forefathers, the work farms, the era of mass incarceration, the American injustice system, and westernized Christianity.
A 1:10 minute video clip of a 6-imate photo essay that tracks Erris through the many phases of his most African, shackled, religious, incarcerated, conflicted, and fragmented self.
