Mark Bradford: Process Collettivo

In 2016, the artist Mark Bradford began a partnership with the cooperative Rio Terà dei Pensieri, an organization that creates work opportunities with and for people incarcerated and recently incarcerated in two prisons in Venice, Italy. The ongoing project, Process Collettivo, builds on Rio Terà’s existing structure, raising awareness about its work through a storefront that sells goods made by the collective—providing funding for the nonprofit—and offers both resources and employment for the previously incarcerated.

Edited and with an introduction by scholar Nicole R. Fleetwood, this book documents and examines both Rio Terà’s multifaceted activities and the collaboration with Bradford. The publication features a conversation between the artist and former President of Rio Terà Liri Longo that delves into the history of their work together and the importance of relationships in collectives, nonprofit work, and socially engaged artmaking.

Functioning in the spirit of Process Collettivo, the book also serves as a platform for vital information related to the project’s concerns: new essays by Asale Angel-Ajani, Elisabetta Grande, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Jessica Lynne critically assess the state of Italian prisons, provide a comparison of Italian and American carceral systems, reflect on the power of creativity inside prisons, and consider this partnership as part of a larger discourse of social practice.