The United States incarcerates more individuals per capita than nearly any other country in the world. Some states take the extra step of permanently revoking former felons’ right to vote in local and national elections. Culturally and legally, then, prisoners’ voices and perspectives are erased from the political landscape in America.

Marcia Haffmans’ work Script Under Suppression, Script From Within seeks to at least partially undo this erasure by presenting the the handwritten words of imprisoned women to the public. Her work is a double reimagining of the role of the prisoner in our society. Not only does it present those voices that society so often muffles—it also reframes these voices as something artistic, something worth being considered in a “serious” context. Haffman uses her platform as an artist to thrust women’s voices into the aesthetic sphere, a sphere of contemplation, and force us to contemplate the words of prisoners.