Eastern State Penitentiary

Built in 1829, Eastern State Penitentiary was once the most famous and expensive prison in the world. The building opened as a museum in 1994, a haunting world of crumbling cellblocks, empty guard towers, and audio-tour-traveling visitors. For more than a decade, the prison has had an active contemporary art program. The Center has supported several projects at Eastern State, including a 2002 sound installation by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, and a 2009 video installation by Bill Morrison with composer Vijay Iyer. In 2014, Eastern State received Center support for Prisons Today: Questions in the Age of Mass Incarceration, an exhibition exploring the nature of the current criminal justice system in the US. The exhibition received a 2017 Excellence in Exhibitions Award from the American Alliance of Museums and is still on view. Through a 2017 Center grant, Eastern State presents Hidden Lives Illuminated, a socially engaged public art project, commissioning twenty animated short films created by artists who are currently incarcerated. In 2021, Eastern State received a Re:imagining Recovery grant to reimagine its business model to develop and promote programming aligned with its mission to interpret the United States’ legacy of criminal justice reform, using a data-driven approach to identify opportunities to grow the historic prison site’s audience, increase regional awareness of its social justice education programming, and diversify revenue potential.