After Violence Project

06/19/2026

Summer Office Closure 💫

At AVP, collective care isn’t just a value we uphold in our archival work—it’s something we try to practice. In that spirit, our team will be offline from June 22–July 3 for a summer pause. While there won’t be our July newsletter, we’ll be back in August with regular updates and reflections.

06/18/2026

New Collection: 85 to Stay Alive Rally Collection

As summer approaches and temperatures rise, incarcerated people in Texas face a reality that many of us can escape—dangerous heat conditions. The 85 to Stay Alive Campaign has been fighting to hold incarceration facilities accountable for keeping temperatures below 85°F. AVP is proud to spotlight a new collection of 15 protest posters from the campaign's July 2023 rally, organized by Texas Prisons Community Advocates, Lioness, Be Frank4Justice, and Texas Center for Justice and Equity, calling on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to provide air conditioning in Texas prisons and jails. The posters carry direct calls to action, documenting how the withholding of safe living conditions compounds the violence of incarceration. Donated by Lioness Executive Director Jennifer Toon, this collection is now part of the archive: https://bit.ly/4fUYCfS

The fight is not over. Consider supporting the organizations who continue it.

06/17/2026

Mutual Aid Call for Community Advisory Council's Anisah Sabur-Mumin 💛

Anisah Sabur-Mumin is system-impacted abolitionist organizer, and a member of AVP’s Community Advisory Council . Her leadership helped pass the HALT Solitary Confinement Act in New York and now serves as National Coordinator for the Unlock the Box Campaign, supporting 23 states working to end solitary confinement. Anisah is recovering from breast cancer surgery and is seeking financial support to get through the coming months.

🔗 If you are able, please consider contributing via: https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/1rdn55

💸 Every bit helps.

06/10/2026

💫 Just Published: Human Work as Care in Community Archiving

In celebration of , AVP Community Archives Manager Raquel Iridian Garcia shares her insights on what it takes to steward the After Violence Archive, reflecting on reciprocity, slow archives, and what AI cannot automate.

"Archivists must understand that stories cannot be untethered from their makers." What do we sacrifice when we rush the process with technology and automation?

📔 Read the full essay: https://afterviolenceproject.org/human-work-as-care/

.councilarchives

06/09/2026

Open Call for Keepsakes Guest Artists! 🎨

We’re thrilled to announce that we are expanding our Keepsakes program to include guest artists at our upcoming group exhibition! We are inviting submissions of completed visual works related to memory, records, and personal archives to be shown alongside the creative work of currently incarcerated collaborators. Whether you are a photographer, cartoonist, illustrator, or another type of visual artist, this call asks for ready-to-hang work. We will prioritize applications from people who are formerly incarcerated and warmly welcome anyone shaped by incarceration or criminalization to apply.

📆 Applicants must live, work, or be based in Central Texas. Each selected artist receives $5,000. Applications due Sunday, July 12, 2026.

🔗 Learn more about the open call: https://bit.ly/4ebQvJ3

05/29/2026

Amid the Trump administration's record-high ex*****ons and calls to expand the death penalty, this book, The Deserving, arrives at an essential time. ARC Executive Director Elizabeth Vartkessian is a mitigation specialist and collaborator with AVP's Access to Treatment Director Susannah Sheffer in the Capital Resilience Forum seminars.

In her new book, she weaves stories from her career into a powerful argument for dignity in American justice, contending that trauma doesn't stay buried and that harsh penalties deny real justice to perpetrators and victims alike. A compelling, hope-filled vision of rehabilitation over retribution.

Learn more via: https://bit.ly/3RBUAPf

05/28/2026

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, one of the most powerful public tools for accountability and historical preservation, is under threat.

Major news outlets including the New York Times and USA Today are blocking the tool's web crawler, citing AI copyright concerns. Ironically, USA Today recently used the Wayback Machine to expose how ICE concealed key data about its detention policies, while simultaneously blocking the very tool that made that reporting possible.

When corporate media locks down the public web, the ability to document state violence, track institutional change, and hold power accountable erodes with it. This is why community-led archiving is not a niche practice. It is a necessity and deserves nuanced attention in this digital age.

Read full article:

As major news outlets cut off the Wayback Machine, journalists and advocacy groups are rallying to protect the Internet Archive’s vast collection of web pages.

05/26/2026

AVP is proud to uplift the leadership of Brother Rob Lilly, a former AVP Visions After Violence Fellow and founder of our fiscal sponsee Da'Cipher 360. In April, Da'Cipher 360 hosted their second annual Wallace Unit Reunion, bringing together formerly incarcerated men, community members, and strategic partners for a powerful day of storytelling, reflection, and collective organizing.

💫 This is what it looks like when system-impacted people are centered, resourced, and leading. AVP was in the room and left inspired.

💸 Please consider making a gift to directly support Brother Rob and Da'Cipher 360's work: https://bit.ly/4uAsi6o

05/07/2026

⚡ Just published: Crime is a Mother

As Mother's Day approaches, we're proud to publish AVP Community Fellow’s Starr Davis latest piece, Crime is a Mother, a searing vignette weaving personal essay and archival research that reckons with what it means when the state rewrites your life as a Black mother.

Court transcripts, police reports, custody orders: the official record that rearranges the meaning of a mother's existence. Davis writes from inside that experience — the criminalization of mothers, families torn apart, children reduced to case numbers and docket entries. Thank you, Starr, for sharing your words and wisdom.💐

This Mother's Day, read, share, and show up for Black mothers.

📖 Read the full essay: https://afterviolenceproject.org/crime-is-a-mother
💸 Support Black Mama's Bail Out: https://www.nationalbailout.org/

04/24/2026

In 2025, the After Violence Project trained 76 mental health professionals on supporting families of people sentenced to death or ex*****on -- reaching clinicians across the country through a training series that just received national accreditation from both NBCC and ASWB. To our knowledge, it's still the only clinical training of its kind focused on this population.

That's just one piece of what AVP accomplished this past year. Our 2025 Impact Report documents a full year of community archiving, memory work, documentary filmmaking, and artists' residencies -- all in response to the ongoing realities of state violence.

Thank you to all our supporters who make this important work possible. We are because of you.

Read the full report here: https://bit.ly/4cENwrP