This print was initially made for the Voices from Outside portfolio Justseeds put together in collaboration with Critial Resistance. We were asked to create images that Critical Resistance could use that were not just negative depictions of prisons; but also inspiring images about what could be, or highlighting activities and forms of resistance around the prison industrial complex. I was picturing a parent and a child planting and saving seeds together. Many parents are incarcerated and separated from their children, and this image represents a child being able to touch and collaborate with his parent, free from incarceration. Growing plants and sharing that activity with other people is a very calming, healing, and healthy activity. Neighborhoods that have community gardens, trees, and plants provide oxygen we all need! There also have been research that has proved that the act of growing plants does have an enormously positive and rehabilitative effect on people who suffer from physical and mental ailments. The other meaning of "save seeds" is an attempt to make a subtle reference of parents working to save their child from being stolen into the prison system (partly through all the activist work that will be done to tear down the walls in the first way, but also through preventative measures, like providing kids with the opportunity to take part in something very magical and powerful like growing plants together.)
The initial linoleum block has been lost, so this is a new carving with a slightly altered design, so that the "Save Seeds" are in a shape influenced by a heart.
