DISCERNING THROUGHLINES, Exploring the Power of Handwriting

Using her Script under Suppression stage, visual artist Marcia Haffmans explores authentic personal handwriting as creative artform of liberation and resistance, inspired by her own WWII family stories. Over the past decade, Haffmans has been offering art making opportunities as an ongoing artist initiative for and with women in jail detention, first in MN and currently in Richmond, VA. Former participants have voluntarily shared their handwritten narratives, fragments of which Haffmans reconfigures through spatial lines (embroidery) focusing on creative agency and connection through handwriting. Installations on view at The Gallery at Main Street Station are each confined within 35 square feet, the minimum required usable floor space of a single occupancy cell (American Correctional Association). Companion exhibit Skewing Lines is on view throughout August at The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, showing more voices too often disregarded in a differently configured 35 square feet installation (main entrance, Slantwall Gallery).

This project is supported by Dutch Culture USA, a program of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United States, to mark America’s 250th Anniversary.