“Because where can mercy be found and where is grace other than in the place that has and always will connect each and every one of us?

Gently, the end of harm is within our grasp.

All we have to do is dare.” –Robert Jones, Jr.

Welcome to The Healing Project, a forthcoming digital archive, music album, and exhibition from composer and artist Samora Abayomi Pinderhughes.

This constellation of creative works explores the daily realities of violence, incarceration, detention, and policing in communities across the United States and highlights healing and care strategies that emerge from these same communities. These strategies operate as portals to another world—a world not built on perpetuating cruelty, capitalism, and punishment. The Healing Project looks to these truths, centering on both healing and harm, to answer the questions: How do we survive in America? How do we support each other?

Pinderhughes uses music, visual arts, film, and language as abolitionist action. The Healing Project takes multiple forms: as musical songs, films, an exhibition, community gatherings, live performances, and a digital library of audio interviews. The works are rooted in interviews and relationships that Pinderhughes has fostered since 2011 and have been formed by over 100 storytelling and artistic collaborators. At the center of the project are the intergenerational voices of individuals across the country, including folks incarcerated in prisons and detention centers. Their stories, experiences, and ideas serve as the foundation for The Healing Project’s vision for societal transformation.

The artworks presented as part of The Healing Project spotlight the violence of our present day structures and offer profound possibilities for our collective recovery. This recovery is full-bodied: emotional, mental, and physical. By interrogating the intersections of profit and violence, the artists and contributors of The Healing Project charge us toward a necessary revolution built on self and collective care.

We hope you are moved and changed by The Healing Project.