High Walls Summit
August 16-17, 2025
About the High Walls Summit
Mario Rios, To Live With Death, 2022, acrylic on canvas board, 24” x 18.”
From Saturday, August 16 through Sunday, August 17, join us for a two-day summit that explores the impact of incarceration and our criminal-legal system on individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole.
The High Walls Summit is a deeper exploration of the themes in our current exhibition High Walls: Artists Navigate Structures of Confinement, on display August 15-October 12, 2025.
Free and open to the public, the High Walls Summit includes hands-on workshops, an exhibiting artist panel, live performances, readings, and more.
See the full schedule and program descriptions below!
Day 1 Program Descriptions (Saturday, August 16)
Curator Tour of High Walls Exhibition
9:30-10:30am
With High Walls curators Katja Rivera, Sarah McKenzie, Geoffrey Shamos
Voices Beyond the Wall: A Reading by Unbound Authors
10:30-11:30am
Presenter: Unbound Authors
Experience the power of stories that transcend bars and borders. This reading features the voices of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers whose words challenge, disrupt, and invite reflection.
Curated by Unbound Authors, the session offers a rare opportunity to listen deeply to the lived experiences, imaginations, and insights of writers on the inside.
Presentation on Criminal Justice Reform and Legislative Opportunities
11:30am-12pm
Presenters: Jamie Ray, Attorney, Korey Wise Innocence Project
This presentation will explore the efforts happening in Colorado to include incarcerated people in the legislative session, practices on organizing behind the walls, and how to continue to advance the voices of formerly incarcerated people and their families in prison reform policy efforts.
High Walls Exhibiting Artists Panel with Impact Arts
1-2pm
Presenters: Cedar Annenkovna, Hector Castillo, Riccardo Kirven, Sonny Lee, Mario Rios, and Dustin Ware. Moderated by Lilly Stannard, Impact Arts.
Join us for an engaging panel discussion featuring five six remarkable artists whose work is featured in the current exhibition High Walls: Artists Navigate Structures of Confinement.
Come experience the power of testimony, imagination, and resilience- and help us honor the creativity and courage of artists carving space for beauty and truth in even the most restrictive environments. Hear firsthand about their creative journeys, the power of art in carceral spaces, and the transformative role of artistic expression in growth and transformation.
Moderated by Lilly Stannard, co-founder of Impact Arts, this panel will include both in-person and virtual contributions, with four artists connecting live from Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility.
Conversation on Reclaiming Futures: Youth Voice and Creative Liberation
2:15-3pm
Presenters: Maya Osterman (Mirror Image Arts) and Emanuel Martinez (Emanuel Project)
Join us for a dynamic conversation exploring how creativity and self-expression can empower young people, disrupt cycles of incarceration, and inspire new possibilities.
Featuring Emanuel Martinez of the Emanuel Project and Mirror Image Arts, the session opens with a live reading of an original poem. It continues with an open dialogue on personal journeys, challenges, and moments of hope, highlighting the transformative impact of art and storytelling on reclaiming futures.
Hands-on Workshop: Collaging Confinement and Freedom
3:15-5pm
Presenters: Tamarra Nelson (Impact Arts) and Tim Montoya (Unchained Voices)
How do we imagine confinement? How do we envision freedom? In this accessible workshop, participants will use the five senses to create collages that engage with questions such as: what does it look like when we feel free? What does it sound like? Smell like?
Alternatively, what does confinement look like, both within the walls of the carceral system and beyond?
Together, we will explore these two concepts in tangible and embodied ways, making freedom easier to access and replicate for others.
Day 2 Program Descriptions (Sunday, August 17)
Restorative Justice Healing Circle
10-11am
Richard (Tehatsí-Sto¿Kwat) Cornelius, Primal Wellness Ltd.
Richard (Tehatsí-Sto¿Kwat) Cornelius is an Oneida Tribal member from Wisconsin and a Senior Consultant with Primal Wellness LTD. As a healer, circle keeper, and restorative justice practitioner, he brings a deeply grounded, holistic approach to healing—drawing on traditional Indigenous knowledge, ceremonial practices, and trauma-informed methods. His work integrates smudging, energy alignment, storytelling, meditation, and community-based ritual to help people reconnect to self, community, and spirit.
Tehatsí-Sto¿Kwat was gifted a sacred Eagle Feather by elders and entrusted to use it in healing and justice work. His facilitation style reflects a commitment to relational accountability, ancestral wisdom, and culturally rooted healing.
This restorative healing circle offers participants an immersive experience rooted in Indigenous wisdom, sacred practice, and community reflection. Guided by Tehatsí-Sto¿Kwat, the gathering will open with a ceremonial address and storytelling to set the space for healing. Participants will explore restorative justice as an alternative to our dominant, punitive system of mass incarceration and engage in a guided activity centered on forgiveness/healing. These practices honor both personal and collective transformation.
Michael Clifton, a restorative justice practitioner, will join Richard in co-facilitating the space, offering grounding support and reflection throughout the healing journey.
Incarceration, Mental Health, and Substance Use: A Photovoice Project
11am-12pm
Presenter: PhotoVoice
Jail incarceration and probation continue to worsen mental health and heighten substance use needs. In 2024, PhotoVoice established a Community Advisory Board (CAB) to center the lived expertise of those experiencing our local criminal legal system (e.g., jail, probation) into research on behavioral health and the criminal legal system.
Using Photovoice with the CAB, we documented structural factors influencing mental health and substance use. This project is working to ground timely interventions and policies in the lived expertise of those in our local criminal legal systems.
Conversation and Listening Party: Parenting & Prison
1-2pm
Presenters: Colorado Radio for Justice; Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition; & Built to Recover.
Join a conversation and listening party reflecting on the complex journey of parenting during and after prison:
Herbert Alexander from Colorado Radio for Justice shares audio excerpts of his award-winning audio documentary, “Incarcerated Dads”
Pam Clifton from Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition shares excerpts from her book Tell Them You Love Them: An Incarcerated Parent’s Resource Guide
Kalena Rodriguez from Unbreakable Ministries and Built to Recover shares perspectives from her work providing support to parents who are, or have been, incarcerated or detained.
Each of these community leaders also share perspectives from their own lived experience as parents who have navigated the criminal-legal system.
The conversation is moderated by Lucy Richardson and produced by Ryan Conarro, both team members at Colorado Radio for Justice.
Presentation on Re-Entry
2:05-2:30pm
Presenter: Carol Peeples, Founder and Executive Director of Remerg
Carol Peeples, founder and executive director of Remerg, will walk you through the process of re-entry in Colorado. How exactly does somebody start over after getting out of jail and prison, and what kind of help do they need? Join Peeples for a brief description and learn how you can help anyone facing this situation.
Liberty by Any Means Play + Talk-Back + Audience Workshop
2:45-4pm
Written and Performed by Michael Clifton, Produced by ACT Ensemble
Liberty by Any Means is a short play written by Michael Clifton while he was incarcerated in Colorado. The performance grapples with hope in the darkest of places: solitary confinement in prison. Follow Jermaine, the protagonist, as he claims his agency, and pursues liberty by any means necessary.
Produced by Grapefruit Lab and The EchoBridges Initiative, this engaging, fully-produced live show will be performed by Clifton, framed within an immersive pop-up art exhibit that puts the voices of folks incarcerated in solitary confinement at the center of the conversation, followed by a reflective dialogue with the audience.
