Worlds Without Prisons: Emerging Visions in Science Fiction

The Worlds Without Prisons: Emerging Visions in Science Fiction research-creation project explores the possibilities to envision and manifest prison abolition through science fiction filmmaking. Building from adrienne maree brown’s ‘Emergent Strategy’ and non-hierarchical organizing principles, I hosted a workshop with prison abolitionist and transformative justice activists and artists Amina Mohamed, Nikki Shaffeeullah, Lolo Sirois, Romina Hernández and Ariane Lorrain. In the following months, we co-created a 10-minute film about a prison drone who joins the prison abolitionist movement. Using archival footage as the backdrop, the film is an attempt to transform state representation of prisons through comedy and satire. This accompanying research explains our exploration of how collective filmmaking approaches could help us create worlds without prisons. In this paper, I situate my positionality in relation to prison abolition, I locate the project within broader movements for prison abolition, transformative justice and visionary fiction, and I elaborate on the methodology behind the making of the workshop and film