Pike School of Art-Mississippi is inviting the community to become a part of its future as it transforms the former Pike County Juvenile Detention Center into a contemporary arts center.
Using several large printed photographs of the building and surrounding areas, artist Nik Nerburn will give participants prompts for writing and drawing on the images to start conversations.
The “Making a Future” workshop will be held 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today at Pike School of Art-Mississippi, 100 Fifth Ave., McComb.
“I’m interested in talking about our hopes and fears for the future of McComb, I’m interested in talking about prisons and the money we spend on prisons and how the money we use on incarcerating people can be used to serve people instead,” Nerburn said.
Nerburn, who lives and works in Duluth, Minn., will document the detention center as a short-term artist-in-residence.
His visit to Mississippi is funded partially by the SouthArts Southern Creative Placemaking grant and a Facebook fundraiser, said founder and director of PSA Calvin Phelps.
“It was important to bring an artist in, and having met Nik recently and seeing the projects he’s worked on in other communities, it was just natural that he had to be the person to come,” Phelps said.
Nerburn and Phelps met at a workshop in Fergus Falls, Minn. After hearing about Phelps’ project of transforming a jail into an art school, Nerburn said he wanted to come to Mississippi.
“One thing I think about a lot is stories — the stories we tell about ourselves and the places we live and the reason I think this is an important project — is because the idea of turning a prison into a school is a very powerful story,” he said.
One of the prompts Nerburn said he’s interested in exploring is the fact that it costs more money to imprison someone for a year than it does to attend Harvard.
“In a state with one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, I think it’s incredibly important that there’s a group of people trying to redirect those resources into serving people instead of incarcerating them,” Nerburn said.
As PSA creates a future, Phelps said it’s important for the organization to work with the community and provide a space where they can be heard and engaged.
“If a child becomes hopeful that art could change their lives, then you’ve saved society a lot of money incarcerating someone and you’ve made people’s lives better,” he said.
As the community participates in transforming the juvenile detention center, Phelps said it’s also important to respect the past.
“I’ve talked to some people who’ve said, ‘This is a horrible building’ and ‘Eliminate all references to the past,’ but I’ve also talked to people who don’t want that to happen, so it’s a delicate fine line of moving forward in a jail without disrespecting what it was used for in the past and making a future,” Phelps said.
Nerburn said it’s important for residents to participate in the workshop because they will have the opportunity to be involved in designing the community arts center.
“Pike School of Art isn’t just investing in one building, it’s investing in the people,” he said.
Lunch will be provided, and after the workshop, the community can join PSA at Trunk-or-Treat on Summit Street from 4-8 p.m.
