PORTLAND — People filled the rows of chairs on a recent evening at Space, but the room was silent. A man stepped into the center of the stage.

“I was first incarcerated when I was around 12 or 13,” he read. “Maybe younger. I don’t really recall. I grew up poor, and my sister was pregnant, and we had nothing to support this soon-to-be-born baby. So I stole money out of a safe from a local business. I was caught and incarcerated. It was my first time away from home.”

This story comes from a digital archive created by Freedom and Captivity, a collective of Mainers who advocate for people impacted by the criminal legal system and incarceration. The group is bringing that archive to life with a performance that will tour the state in November.

Catherine Besteman, an anthropology professor at Colby College who in recent years has been studying mass incarceration in the United States, said no such archive existed in Maine before this one came online.

“People who are in prisons and people who have loved ones in prisons, their voices are never really heard,” she said. “It felt very important to have this archive to bring the voices to the surface of what the experience of mass incarceration is doing to us as a society.”

‘AN OPEN INVITATION’

Launched in 2021, the Freedom and Captivity project has taken many forms. The group has organized art exhibitions, performances, panel discussions, workshops and curriculum around the concept of abolition.

The organizers started preserving the art and poetry and music on their website. Eventually, they worked with Colby College Digital Libraries and the Maine Historical Society to create a home for those materials online. Last year, Freedom and Captivity trained volunteers to fan out across Maine to gather even more stories.

Now, the archive holds more than 80 entries. They are poems and prose, video messages and audio recordings, written testimony submitted to legislative committees. Stories can be anonymous, and the project is open to anybody.

“We had people submitting stories who are incarcerated,” Besteman said. “We had people submitting stories who are guards. We had people submitting stories who have loved ones who are incarcerated, people who are in the mental health and the medical profession who have worked inside prisons. It was just an open invitation to anybody who had a story to tell about their involvement with the system of incarceration.”

To spread the word, the organizers worked with local artist Samuel James to turn archived stories into a 45-minute performance of skit, spoken word, video testimonials and audio clips. While the cast is not necessarily telling their own stories on stage, many have their own experiences in prisons and jails that inform their performance.

Brandon Brown, 39, has shared his story in public for years. He was the first person to earn a master’s degree in a Maine prison and was accepted into a doctorate program at George Mason University in Virginia to study restorative justice and conflict resolution. He helped advocate for changes in the state’s supervised release program and was the first person released under the new guidelines in 2021. He got involved with Freedom and Captivity the following year.

Brown quickly noticed a common thread in the wide-ranging archive. People who have engaged in violence have usually been victims as well, Brown said, a finding that is backed up by research.

“The system is designed to separate our experiences with one another,” Brown said. “To hear all the threads that were interconnected, it made me feel really strongly that we, as a whole, need to talk about these topics in order to bridge our experiences.”

A BALM TO CRUELTY

Linda Small, 64, is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a nonprofit that focuses on women and girls who are impacted by the criminal legal system. She travels often for her work, and she sees the way the stories gathered in Maine connect to the experiences of people across the country.

“When we talk about numbers and statistics, that’s one thing,” Small said. “But when you watch and listen to somebody tell their story, it’s quite something else.”

The Freedom and Captivity organizers debuted an abridged version of their performance during a recent event at Space in Portland called Abolition Night.

A. Cuba Jackson told a story about a prayer rug that became a lifeline in segregation.

“It was a portal, a tangible connection to my faith, a balm to the cruelty of prison life,” Jackson read. “Laid out on the cold concrete floor of my cell, it transformed that space into a sanctuary, a haven where I could experience something beyond myself.”

Katrina Hoop shared another from a family member of an incarcerated person.

“When you have a loved one who’s incarcerated you wish you could have a moment of pause every now and again to hold them, embrace them,” she read. “It might sound silly to some, but I remember pressing a letter from my husband to my face with my eyes closed.”

The performance included recordings from currently and formerly incarcerated people. In one clip, a man on the inside told a story over the phone to a volunteer. Their call started with a question.

“So what’s the story you’re going to tell me?”

---

IF YOU GO

To access the Freedom and Captivity archive or share your own story, visit freedom-captivity.org/archive

Freedom and Captivity will tour “It’s Hard to Talk About: Stories of Incarceration in Maine” across the state in November. Each performance runs 45 minutes and is followed by a 30-minute conversation with the audience. The stories cover mature topics and include adult language that may not be suitable for all audiences. All shows are free and open to the public. For more information, visit freedom-captivity.org/performance

7 p.m. Nov. 7, Franco Center, Lewiston
1 p.m. Nov. 8, as part of the Freedom and Justice Summit. The Grand, Ellsworth
7 p.m. Nov. 8, TunkJoy Bakery, Steuben
1 p.m. Nov. 9, Castine Historical Society, Castine
Noon, Nov. 22, York Public Library, York
6:30 p.m. Nov. 22, Meetinghouse Arts, Freeport
4 p.m. Nov. 23, First Parish in Portland, Unitarian Universalist, Portland