School-to-prison pipeline displayed in Union art exhibit

Even though the exhibit was taken down Monday, organizers of “None of the Above” are preparing to take their message about the issues connecting poor schools and prisons on the road.

The interactive art and performance project that pushes for social change was created by the group Hidden Voices. The exhibit includes photographs that had been on display in the Student Union.

The exhibit will next be on display at Duke University, UNC-Pembroke and Guilford College.

“All of the play comes from real situations and real interviews that they’ve collected over three years, so it’s all really relevant, really personal stuff,” said Schara Brooks, a UNC senior and a performer in the show.

Playwright Lynden Harris founded the project in 2010 and spent three years interviewing and working with hundreds of teachers and students in more than 20 counties in North Carolina.

The project was funded by a grant of up to $45,000 from UNC’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities in 2012.

Most of the project’s live performers tell their own stories on stage. The performers included teachers, students and lawyers who advocate for students facing potentially unfair suspensions.

“For instance, in one county in N.C., there are such things as being suspended for a first-time offense of cellphone use or dress code violation,” Harris said.

She said the project also addresses the discrepancy in the disciplinary measures for white and minority students.

“There’s a real racial issue here in terms of who’s aware of the school pushout and who’s aware of mass incarceration,” Harris said. White students are less affected and therefore less aware of the discrepancy, she said.

Harris said minority students were nearly eight times more likely to be suspended for a rule violation than their white peers.

Brittany McKinney, a freshman involved in the production, said she felt it was important to be an example to younger students.

She said she works in the Campus Y’s Boomerang program, which matches local middle school and high school students with UNC student mentors while they suspended from school.

The mentors are supposed to help students pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses to find goals and careers that are right for them.

Brooks said UNC students have reacted enthusiastically to the gallery.

“We could literally talk about it for days,” she said.

Harris said generating conversation was the point of the project and has caused viewers of the exhibit to be alternately horrified, energized and shocked.

“It was overwhelming, but that was also the beauty of it because it came from so many perspectives,” she said.

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