Gregory Sale
Collaborating with individuals and communities on aesthetic responses to social challenges, artist and educator Gregory Sale creates and coordinates large-scale and often long-term public projects. For close to 20 years, his work has focused on issues of mass incarceration. System-impacted individuals and communities help conceptualize social-aesthetic structures, co-produce artistic components, and direct the advocacy intention of the work.
More specifically, Sale has undertaken a series of projects focused on reframing the narrative of reentering society after incarceration, culminating in Future IDs at Alcatraz (2018-2019). This yearlong, socially engaged project, exhibition, and programmatic series was created with core-project collaborators Dr. Luis Garcia, Kirn Kim, Sabrina Reid, and Jessica Tully and in partnership with the National Park Service, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and 20 community organizations.
Since the onset of the pandemic, Sale and a group of system-impacted leaders have formed the Future IDs Art and Justice Leadership Cohort to expand their understanding of the power of artistic production to support justice reform and to further their effectiveness as catalysts of social change.
His work has received support from Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Creative Capital Foundation in Emerging Fields, A Blade of Grass/David Rockefeller Fund Fellowship in Criminal Justice, Art Matters, SPArt (Social Practice Art), the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and artist residency awards (Yaddo, MacDowell, Grand Central Art Center, Headlands, Montalvo, Ucross, and Centre d’Art Marnay Art Centre).
Education
MFA, Art, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 1995
BFA , Sculpture, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 1987
BA, French Literature, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 1987
Certificat de 2iéme degré, Université des Langues et Lettres, Grenoble III, France, 1983
Expertise Areas
Area of study
Future IDs
Begun in November 2018 as an artist studio that the public could visit, Future IDs at Alcatraz officially launched in February 2019 with a Day of Public Programs and an exhibition featuring ID-inspired artworks. It concluded at the end of September 2019 with an Art and Justice Summit on Alcatraz.
The exhibition and programs were situated in the New Industries Building that once housed the prison’s laundry and manufacturing facilities. This cavernous space included a large exhibition and programming room, a flexible space for workshops and meals, a video viewing room, and, importantly, a separate, quiet Space for Processing and Reflection.
Bright, colorful, and hopeful, the 42 individually designed, ID-inspired artworks were enlarged and printed on vinyl to stand up to the physically imposing space. In stark contrast to prison-issued IDs, these self-portraits represent individual stories of transformation and summon feelings of compassion through personal testimonials in word, image, and bodily presence about the past, present circumstances and future dreams of individuals with conviction histories.
Intending to reach as many people as possible, and recognizing that perhaps a “default” experience on Alcatraz rests in nostalgia and Hollywood notions of prisons, the project, in conjunction with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, worked to introduce the 200,000 Future IDs visitors to social justice issues in meaningful ways.
Future IDs also provided moments for deeper engagement through ongoing community programs co-designed with system-involved individuals, organizations, and communities. Future IDs invited these partners to work with the Future IDs Creative Team to explore the storied site and exhibition as a platform to amplify their messaging and investigations. This resulted in 27 community programs with performances, workshops, and roundtable discussions, building an ever-widening sphere of connectivity among those who care about social justice and reentry back into society.