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Behind These Walls: Reckoning with Incarceration

James A. Michener Art Museum

        Coming UpThe Short Line
Coming UpA Garden Gathering at The Short Line

Artist jackie sumell working in the Solitary Gardens on Andry Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo by Maiwenn Raoult. sumell will plant and tend a new Solitary Garden as part of the Michener Museum's Behind These Walls: Reckoning with Incarceration. — Artist jackie sumell working in the Solitary Gardens on Andry Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo by Maiwenn Raoult. sumell will plant and tend a new Solitary Garden as part of the Michener Museum's *Behind These Walls: Reckoning with Incarceration.*

jackie sumell, Solitary Garden at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut, 2021.

jackie sumell, Solitary Gardens on Andry Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo by Maiwenn Raoult.

Recipient

Grant Year 2023

Grant Amount $184,580

Status Active

Updated May 15, 2025

The Michener commissions multidisciplinary artist jackie sumell to develop a “Solitary Garden” as part of a project that recognizes the museum building’s original function as the Bucks County Prison. Designed in correspondence with a currently incarcerated person, sumell’s garden bed installation is the same size and blueprint as many prison cells, and the biodegradable materials that make up its structure disappear over time as the plants and flowers mature. Additionally, the museum works with an advisory committee of local community members, facilitated by local community leader Marlene Pray, to consider the history of its site, mass incarceration, and public monuments.

The total grant amount represents project funding plus an additional 20% in unrestricted general operating support.

Primary ExhibitionEvents & Exhibitions

The Short Line

May 27–Sep 30, 2025
Michener Art Museum
138 S. Pine Street
Doylestown, PA 18901

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Behind These Walls: Community Perspectives on our History Exhibition

May 29–Nov 24, 2024
James A. Michener Art Museum
138 S. Pine Street
Doylestown, PA 18901

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Recipient

James A. Michener Art Museum

Named for Doylestown's most famous son, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer James A. Michener, this museum was founded in 1988 with a regional focus, housing a collection of Pennsylvania impressionist paintings. An ongoing interest is the collection and exhibition of the work of art-furniture makers and designers working in the Bucks County area, such as George Nakashima.

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