[Daily Record] The Church of the Redeemer is hosting an exhibit made by an artist to stay sane during a more than two-decade stint in solitary confinement in state prison.
Ojore Nuru Lutalo created his artwork while spending 22 years in the Management Control Unit of Trenton State Prison, using only the tools at his disposal: old newspapers, glue, and used paper.
Lutalo served 28 years in prison for armed robbery and weapons offenses involving a shootout with a police officer in 1975 and another shootout with a drug dealer in 1981. Lutalo spent most of his time in prison in solitary confinement because he was a deemed a security threat, according to a story by The Associated Press.
Lutalo ripped text and images from news clippings to construct original collages that he said describe his 28 years at Trenton State Prison.
"Ojore began creating collages both as a way to maintain his sanity and to more adequately convey to his friends the physical and emotional reality he experienced within solitary confinement,” said Bonnie Kerness, director of the American Friends Service Committee's Prison Watch Program, who produced the large format installations. “He created a wide range of art pieces offering both his unique perspective on the conditions he faced and commentary on injustices more broadly."
Many of those themes were discussed at the Church of the Redeemer Wednesday in a community conversation about mass incarceration centered on Michelle Alexander's book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness.”
Morristown Green also covered this exhibit.
