Linkage Community

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Detroit, MI
Linkage Community

We are Michigan’s leading peer-led network of creative people living beyond incarceration.

The Linkage Community forms a creative network with and for people directly impacted by incarceration. Together, we dismantle isolation, build bridges of opportunity, and connect through creativity. Boarn within the University of Michigan's Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), the Linkage Community has grown into a vibrant, statewide collective of artists with lived experience of incarceration. We

envision a future where creatives thrive beyond incarceration, linked into dynamic arts networks to connect, collaborate, and grow.

08/05/2026

Happy Birthday to us! 🎂

One year ago, we became our own. What started as a dream is now 250+ members STRONG — with NEW exhibitions, NEW performances, NEW programs/trainings... and creativity that REFUSES to be contained.🔥🙌

Year Two is already in motion. Stay tuned for a Year One recap.

And if you want to help us make even MORE impact, your support keeps this community growing.

🌱Donate here: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/linkarmswithlinkage

07/31/2026

April 2025 was the beginning of a BOLD move: untangling 25 years of history with the University of Michigan's Prison Creative Arts Project to become independent, with our friends at Innovation Partnerships and our brave fiscal sponsor, Social Good Fund, helping us navigate the way.

Since then, the members' ideas and ambition have driven us further than anyone imagined.🔥

Last May, University of Michigan Innovation Partnerships celebrated that journey with a Bell Ringing Ceremony, their tradition for celebrating a new startup's official launch. Ours was the fastest spin-off they've ever recorded.

Innovation Partnerships usually works with businesses, so bringing a values-driven organization like ours through that process took real creative problem-solving and genuine partnership on all sides. 🙏 We're grateful they saw the vision and made it happen.

None of it happens without the 250+ Linkage artists, who kept creating, kept connecting, kept dreaming, kept building. 💛 This milestone is theirs.

07/15/2026

BIG moment for our community: Postmarked From The Inside, an exhibition of greeting cards created by artists inside Michigan prisons, was featured on Michigan Public's Stateside with April Baer.

The exhibit is curated by Dr. Vitalis Im — assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and a member of Linkage's Strategic Advisory Committee — alongside co-curator Martín Vargas , an incredibly gifted artist and long-time Linkage members.

We are huge NPR fans around here, and hearing Vitalis and Martín talk about this project on Stateside was a proud moment for our whole community. Give it a listen and see the way artists are reshaping the story — one card at a time.

🎙️Listen to the full episode: https://www.michiganpublic.org/stateside/2026-07-10/stateside-friday-july-2026

Thank you, Michigan Public, for giving this project and the artists the mic.

07/10/2026

A HUGE thank you to the Linkage artists who made our first Pop-Up Art Stop come alive! 🎨✨

You traveled from across Michigan, set up your work, shared your stories, and gave everyone in that room something to carry home — and we couldn't be more proud of you. Linkage Community is what it is because of the artists who pour their hearts into it. (MORE photos coming your way soon!)

📬Want to be the first to know about our next event? Sign up and get updates delivered straight to your inbox: https://forms.gle/G5d3RtqBX3bkfveV9

📸 Photo credit: uptown24 studios
Jeremiah Mckinney, Johnetta Sullivan, Kimiko Uyeda, Cozine Welch Jr.

07/08/2026

Zingerman's Bakehouse and their community of businesses named us their July Nonprofit Spotlight — and we're honored.🙏
They wrote that Linkage gives members "a support system that lets people know they're included, they matter, what they do matters, and that they have a future." We love that.
Even more, Linkage is a member-driven network. Our members ARE Linkage. That sense of belonging is something they've created together, not something that's been handed to them.
Grateful to Zingerman's for seeing this community clearly. 🖤
Learn more: zcob.me/spotlight

07/07/2026

We couldn't have done it without these incredible community partners — and we want to make sure they know it! 💛

A massive THANK YOU to the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, the Michigan Justice Fund, Open Book Theatre Company, Dollar Bill Printing, and The Guild of Artists & Artisans for making our first Pop-Up Art Stop possible. Your support is what allows Linkage Community to do what we do. We are deeply, deeply grateful.🙏

📸 Event photo credit: uptown24 studios

06/26/2026

TOMORROW. Trenton. Free. All day. No excuses. 🎨

The Pop-Up Art Stop is taking over Open Book Theatre and we are bringing EVERYTHING.

Live music. Spoken word. Theatre. Original art for sale direct from the artists. Duck Deco. Refreshments. And a room full of the most talented people in Michigan.

These are Linkage Community members. Painters. Musicians. Poets. Sculptors. Authors. They made the work. They'll be there. Come meet them.

📅 Saturday, June 27
🕐 11AM – 8PM
📍 Open Book Theatre · 1621 West Rd, Trenton MI
🎟 FREE — no tickets, just show up

RSVP + details: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/linkarmswithlinkage/event/popupartstop/
FB Event: https://www.facebook.com/share/1FcU6YZVAJ/

Tag someone who needs to be there. 👇

06/23/2026

Meet Shelly Lyons-Mac . She's a rockstar artist & Linkage Community member, and the reason we're all about to lose it over rubber ducks. 🦆😍

Shelly is leading Duck Deco this Saturday at the Pop-Up Art Stop — a FREE, no-sign-up activity where you bedazzle your own duck!!

NO experience needed. Just show up and get weird with it.

This is just one epic piece of what Linkage Community members are bringing to the table. Come see the rest.

📅 Saturday, June 27 · 11AM–8PM
📍 Open Book Theatre, 1621 West Road, Trenton MI
🎟 Free and open to the public — just pop in

Full event details + RSVP: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/linkarmswithlinkage/event/popupartstop/

06/18/2026

⏰ 10 DAYS until Pop-Up Art Stop!

Artists from across Michigan are coming together for one epic day of art, storytelling, and community — original paintings, drawings & prints for sale, live music and poetry, rubber duck decorating, hands-on printmaking, PLUS a few surprises😉 (and snacks!).

FREE, all ages, no tickets needed — RSVP below or just show up, June 27, 11am–8pm at Open Book Theatre (1621 West Rd, Trenton, MI 48183)

🔥 https://secure.qgiv.com/for/linkarmswithlinkage/event/popupartstop/

Book Theatre Company

06/12/2026

A birthday card. A love letter. An apology. Made by hand, inside a Michigan prison, with whatever was available.

Postmarked From the Inside is one of the most powerful exhibitions we've had the honor of supporting.

Our member and visual artist Martín Vargas co-curated it. Vitalis Im, a cornerstone of our Strategic Advisory Committee, directed the project. This is what it looks like when people in our community lead.🔥

See it for yourself. It's free.

📍 University of Michigan Detroit Center (3663 Woodward Ave #150, Detroit, MI 48201)
📅 Now through August 31, 2026

🔗 postmarkedfromtheinside.com

Co-sponsored with: University of Michigan Detroit Center · · UM-Dearborn College of Education, Health, and Human Services · Prison Creative Arts Project

Address

2431 Ferry Park Street
Detroit, MI
48208

Website

http://linkagecommunity.org/

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