Illuminations: The Chancellor's Arts & Culture Initiative presents a special film screening, panel discussion and exhibit.
First, the Oscar-nominated, 37-minute documentary I Am Ready, Warden rolls in McCormack Screening Room. The film chronicles the final days leading up to the execution of John Henry Ramirez in a Texas prison.
Next, a panel assembles in the Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive exhibit space across from Langson Library. Panelists are the film’s producer, acclaimed journalist Keri Blakinger, and MacArthur Grant winner Andrea Armstrong, a law professor renowned for documenting deaths in Louisiana prisons. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with Blakinger and Armstrong about their different approaches to documenting death and dying in prison.
The audience will also have special access to a fall exhibit highlighting PrisonPandemic, a UC Irvine project to archive incarcerated Californian’s COVID-19 experiences through art, letters, ephemera and audio recorded selections (including recorded narratives playing through four refurbished prison phones with which attendees will be able to interact). Criminology, law & society Professor Keramet Reiter co-founded the PrisonPandemic project.
Light refreshments will be served.
Please note that parking permits are strictly required at all times on the UCI campus. The closest parking options for visitors to the McCormack Screening Room at Humanities Gateway are Lot 7 or the Mesa Parking Structure. For the OC&SEAA exhibit space, you can park in Lot 1 (located directly across from the library) or in the Student Center Parking Structure on Pereira Drive.
