We asked Juan Hernandez, an artist incarcerated in Illinois, to send us some sketches about his experience with higher education in prison. Just 16 when he was incarcerated, Hernandez has been shut out of educational opportunities because of his 45-year sentence. It took him 18 years to even be allowed to take his GED. Here he shares his visual interpretations of what education inside would mean for him.
“Solo celebration”
I’ve heard of prisoners acquiring their liberal arts degree through the mail, but haven’t actually seen anyone do it before. For those who have accomplished this, they receive no graduation ceremony, no pat on the back by the administration or anything at all. Imagine spending your own money on all the credits needed, putting in all the long hours of studying and homework assignments and then one day getting that diploma in the mail but no recognition. If it was me I’d write a graduation speech and set up a little assembly in the corner of my cell, so that’s what I did here. He’s having a solo celebration.
“Education = Freedom”
I placed a graduation cap on a gun tower and the cap’s tassel is hanging over the fence outside of the prison grounds. A prisoner is using the tassel as a rope and has climbed it to freedom.
“Higher learning”
A lot of facilities don’t provide higher education, especially in maximum security prisons. I vividly remember a prisoner once telling me that he’s more liable to see a UFO than a college degree. It made me laugh, but it wasn’t funny because it was the truth. That prisoner’s quote came to mind and I saw how the graduation cap kind of looked like a UFO so I sketched it and then I incorporated the scene of a graduation cap beaming up the prison graduates and taking them to a better world just like their acquired degrees will. The officers are losing their shit in a panic just as I imagine they would in real life because an educated prisoner is a dangerous prisoner. Also, I’m yet to acquire any college degree, but if I did I’d be feeling like I’m floating in the air just like the graduates in the sketch.
Another version of Hernandez’s final sketch, “Education = Freedom” never made it out of his prison:
“I sent you three sketches about a week ago and today I was given an Unauthorized Mail Notification slip saying that one of the sketches caused a threat to the safety and security of the prison. It was a sketch of a gun tower with a huge graduation cap on its top where its string tassel was hanging over the fence outside of the prison’s compound. I drew a prisoner using the tassel as a means to climb towards freedom. Hence, I called the sketch ‘Education = Freedom’, but the facility didn’t see it that way. They just had me destroy it.”
— Juan Hernandez
When asked about its policies regarding censorship of outgoing artwork, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Corrections pointed Open Campus to the Illinois Administrative Code. The code notes that “Department employees may spot check and read outgoing non-privileged mail” which may “be withheld from delivery if it presents a threat to security or safety, including…plans to escape.”
Juan Hernandez is an incarcerated artist born and raised in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. His art has been exhibited at Angelica Kauffman Gallery, Art in Odd Places NYC, and The Design Museum of Chicago, amongst others. His writing has appeared in publications such as Prison Journalism Project and Teen Vogue, and he has received support from The Puffin Foundation and The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. Follow him on Instagram.