ANN ARBOR—Nearly 400 pieces of art and just as many stories to go with them will be on display at the 11th annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners.

The event, hosted by the University of Michigan’s Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), runs March 14-29 at U-M’s Duderstadt Center Gallery on the University’s North Campus.

The opening reception will honor PCAP founder Buzz Alexander, U-M’s Thurnau Professor of English. Alexander was recently named the 2005 Doctoral and Research Universities Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He attributes the award to the work of several thousand prisoners and underserved youth and U-M students who work and volunteer with the program.

The reception, which is 5:30-8 p.m. March 14 in the Gallery, will feature speakers including artists from previous exhibitions, now home from prison, and Herschell Turner, an art instructor at the Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility.

During the last decade, the nationally recognized show has grown to include nearly 400 works of art by more than 225 incarcerated artists. Even with limited resources, these artists create work representing a rich range of styles, mediums and themes. More than 4,000 people attended last year’s exhibit.

Free and open to the public, the exhibit and educational events inspire dialogue between the incarcerated and the community at large. According to Jamal Biggs, a featured artist,” The exhibit has helped in eliminating the ‘us versus them’ mindset between the free public and the incarcerated and assists in facilitating a sense of community that joins both segments of the population.”

PCAP Administrator Suzanne Gothard, Alexander and Janie Paul, a U-M professor of art, co-curate the exhibit. Together with students and community volunteers, the curators hand-select artwork from more than 40 prisons throughout Michigan. The top 30 pieces of work from this year’s show will travel to the Open Source Gallery in Champaign, Ill., for an exhibition sponsored by the University of Illinois.

“U-M’s PCAP effort is the only university-sponsored program of its scale,” Alexander said.

The program currently has 60 trained PCAP volunteers working in the field facilitating workshops in the arts in prisons, juvenile facilities and Detroit high schools. Another 49 students are doing the same in classes taught by Alexander and Paul.

“Students are sticking around after graduation to work in the program,” said Gothard.

More than 80 of the program’s associates who have graduated and left Ann Arbor continue to work in the social justice field.

This year’s series of educational events accompanying the show include keynote speakers Liz Fink, a prominent criminal defense attorney, and Christian Parenti, author of” Lockdown America” ; a special screening of the documentary” After Innocence,” winner of the 2005 Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival; and a night of spoken word featuring formerly incarcerated poets, their mentors and New York City poet William E. Waters.

The Duderstadt Center Gallery is at 2281 Bonisteel Blvd. The gallery is open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, and noon-6 p.m. Sundays and Mondays. Admission is free.

Detailed schedule of events surrounding the exhibitionPrison Creative Arts ProjectProf. AlexanderImages