Juvenile-In-Justice has put the face on juveniles in the justice system. While data is undeniably important, locating the numbers in the context of a real child is critical to creating empathy. Lives can be measured, but don’t resonate, in the sterile fluorescence of numbers, charts and trends. Data yearns to be articulated in the human experience in fragile voice and portrait to be truly understood and effectively used. Juvenile-in-Justice is a collection of images, interviews, audio documents, and texts created over a dozen years, at 300 sites in 35 states, drawn from the lives of more than 1,000 kids. Join artist and photographer Richard Ross, director of the project, for a discussion of this work of art and activism, to show how he and his team work with educational institutions and non-profits to better understand and/or explain the needs, policies, strategies, and resources required to facilitate better outcomes for the 53,000+ children in custody every day.

Richard Ross is an artist, activist and distinguished research professor of art based at UC Santa Barbara. Ross has been the recipient of grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Center for Cultural Innovation. Ross is both Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellow.

His most recent work, the In-Justice series, turns a lens on the placement and treatment of American juveniles housed by law in facilities that treat, confine, punish, assist and, occasionally, harm them. Four published books and traveling exhibitions of the work continue to see great success while Ross collaborates with juvenile justice stakeholders, using the images as a catalyst for change.

Professor Ross' Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC.