Artist Faith Ringgold has resided on Rikers Island for the past 50 years. This island is also home to New York City’s jail complex created in 1971 for a women’s correctional facility.
Ringgold’s public art commission ‘For the Women’s House’ was designed to inspire female inmates. The mural consists of women of different ages, races, and jobs scarcely occupied by women in 1972, showing a society where all jobs can be available to women regardless of age, race, or gender.
She conducted multiple interviews with the women inmates and afterward designed that she wanted them to look beyond their situation and begin “the long road” ahead.
‘For the Women’s House” in 2000 was moved to the gym at Rose M. Singer Center, displayed there for over a decade, and later moved to a remote hallway with little traffic. Now Ringgold’s artwork will be relocated to the Brooklyn Museum.
Original report by: Brigit Katz/Smithsonian Magazine
Read more here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/an-evocative-mural-on-rikers-island-will-be-moved-to-the-brooklyn-museum-180979425/
