Erasing Frankenstein: A Collaborative Prison Arts Project will be on exhibit on the first floor of the Harriet Irving Library from mid-September to mid-November. The project received Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funding, and is led by Sue Sinclair & Elizabeth Effinger (Department of English).
On the bicentennial of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, this exhibit showcases the result of an artistic collaboration that brings together university students and members of the Walls to Bridges Collective, a group of incarcerated and non-incarcerated women dedicated to creating collaborative and innovative learning communities within correctional settings. Participants each “erased” several pages of the novel, strategically blotting out words to create a new literary work of art: an “erasure,” a long poem piggybacking on Shelley’s original work.
The novel has been reassembled into a rich and crinkly book, which will be on display at the library, as well as blown-up images of some of the individual pages and statements from participants.
