Photo courtesy of Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
How can paper pave the way to freedom? On November 12-13, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA) and community partners will explore this question and many others as they host a series of programs with poet, lawyer, and activist Reginald Dwayne Betts. These programs are presented in connection with the ongoing exhibition Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper.
Betts is the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads,
an initiative to radically transform access to literature in prisons. Founded in 2020 with a grant from the Mellon Foundation, Freedom Reads has, to date, opened more than 500 Freedom Libraries in fifty adult and youth prisons across 13 states. These libraries provide a locus where conversation and community can begin inside and outside of prison walls, supporting the efforts of incarcerated individuals to imagine new possibilities for their lives.
“We’re incredibly grateful for the generous support from our community partners, which made it possible to bring Reginald Dwayne Betts to Kalamazoo in conjunction with the Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper exhibit. Mr. Betts helps demonstrate that paper is a silent witness to creation through the visual, performing, and written arts,” says Jennifer Cooley, Director of Museum Education and Community Engagement..
A MacArthur Fellow who holds a J.D. from Yale Law School,
Betts is the author of a memoir and five collections of poetry, including Felon (2019) and Doggerel (2025). In 2021, Betts debuted a solo theatrical performance based on Felon. Artist Kyoko Ibe fashioned the set for the original performance out of “prison paper,” constructed by Ruth Lignen from the clothing of incarcerated men. Felon: An American Washi Tale functions as a meditation on experiences of incarceration and on the creative and liberatory potentials of paper. KIA guests can explore works in paper by Ibe and eight additional contemporary Japanese artists in the exhibition Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper…