RAG members are artists who have served time in various institutions across Ohio and nationally. Through their performances, artworks, and storytelling, these artists help audiences gain a better understanding of the prison industrial complex, its direct impact on so many people, and the distinction between prison abolition and prison reform movements.
“As directly impacted artists, we are positioned to critique the carceral state and expose the harm incarceration does to people and their families,” says Wissman. “We also have the perspective to imagine new solutions, to dream up the blueprint for a world without prisons. RAG supports the work of our artists holistically and we remain the safety net and constant contact that they deserve while rebuilding their lives and practices or while confined to the punitive and traumatic environment of prison.”
The prison abolition movement seeks to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system and instead replace them with systems of care and rehabilitation that do not focus on punishment and government institutionalization. Thomas hopes people keep an open mind about this concept as it seeks to gain momentum. “I wish people knew that abolition and transformative justice don’t mean no accountability or no consequences. It just means we’re not focusing on punishment as the primary means of correction.” Wissman echoes this statement, sharing “prison abolition means a radical undoing of the harm done through incarceration and a reimagining of what justice can be and how we address people who transgress and cause real harm.”
RAG and OPEEP now partner together, and assistance with educational and professional development opportunities for artists in the guild is being supported by Carmen Winant, a professor in the OSU Department of Art. Winant first heard about RAG through a friend and then met with Thomas and Wissman to discuss how they might be able to work together. “Coming to know their work, as artists, curators, single mothers, and organizers, has affirmed my belief in art as a tool of transformative justice and community building.”
Plans are currently in the works for several workshops with RAG taught by OSU lecturers in photography, painting, and video, as well as a Spring 2026 exhibition on campus. “I am so grateful for OPEEP's guidance and sustained support in this process,” says Winant. “I am certain it would not have been possible to coordinate without the groundwork that Dr. (Mary) Thomas, Dr.(Tiyi) Morris, and many others have laid.”
Kamisha Thomas works diligently to support artists however possible, whether that is connecting them to professional development resources, securing exhibition space for their artwork, or even pitching in to babysit so they can take a much-needed break. As we go about our lives, encountering others, Thomas reminds us to keep these things in the front of our minds:
“We are all interconnected. Everything I do will have an impact on you and vice versa.
We all share the same feelings and needs (no exceptions).
We all want to contribute, even if it’s just an idea.
People are inherently good. No one was born bad.”
