The Detroit Justice Center (DJC) is pleased to announce Mariah Barrera as its 2026–27 Artist in Residence. Over the coming residency year, Barrera will develop On Earth As It Is in Prison, a photography project that reexamines one of the most familiar — and least documented — images in system-impacted family archives: the prison visitation photo.
Every year since 2020, the Detroit Justice Center has been asking Wayne County artists to submit project proposals that grapple with the question:
“What does a world without police and incarceration look like?”
The Detroit Justice Center believes that creativity and art are essential to imagining and building a world where every human life is valued with equal care and consideration and disposing of people is no longer considered justice. Artists, through their work, can help us see the systems shaping our lives differently, imagine what liberation might look and feel like, and inspire us to make those possibilities tangible.
Barrera’s project, “On Earth As It Is in Prison,” reimagines the family prison visitation photo as a tool for collective liberation
Across the country, families of incarcerated loved ones share a visual language shaped by prison visiting rooms — portraits posed in front of painted backdrops of waterfalls and beaches, printed by a trustee photographer as the sole proof that a visit took place. These photographs live in frames, on refrigerators, and in boxes in basements, rarely discussed and rarely preserved as the significant artifacts they are.
Drawing on her own family archive and her prior documentary work, Still Here, Barrera will scan, digitize, and study prison visitation photographs from families across Michigan, including in Saginaw, Grand Rapids, and Muskegon, in partnership with reentry and justice organizations such as Fresh Coast Alliance. Working with families whose loved ones have since been released, Barrera will collaborate with them to imagine and create a new kind of family portrait — one made without prison walls, uniforms, or supervision, set instead in the places and poses each family envisions for their own future.
The project will culminate in a gallery exhibition pairing original visitation photographs with their reimagined counterparts, alongside a digital zine documenting the process and the families’ reflections.
“Mariah’s project asks us to look closely at images so common in our communities that they’re almost invisible, and to recognize the histories and hopes carried inside them,” said Casey Rocheteau, Communications Director of the Detroit Justice Center. “This residency is about giving directly impacted families the chance to picture liberation on their own terms.”
Follow Mariah Barrera on Social Media:
Instagram: @mariah.gb
Tikok: @mariahgbarrera
About the Artist:
Mariah Barrera is a Mexican-American filmmaker and writer born and raised in Michigan. She graduated as a first-generation student at Columbia University with a B.A. in Film + Media Studies and Creative Writing. Her films have been shown at festivals such as Urbanworld, Cleveland International Film Festival, NFFTY, Virginia Film Festival and DOC NYC and highlighted by The Washington Post, Mitú, NowThis, Stylecaster, Women and Hollywood, and Adobe Gen Create. She has garnered recognition as a YoungArts Alumna, Mitú-Walmart Film Mentee, Made In Her Image Panavision Mentee, Hispanic Heritage Foundation Awardee, E.l.f x Her Campus 22 Under 22 Award Winner, & Sotheby’s Art Noir Grantee. She has participated in film fellowships/mentorships with Still I Rise Films, Picture Farm, and Panavision x Made in Her Image. She has also interned with companies such as Yahoo’s BUILT BY GIRLS and MACRO.
Her films aim to amplify themes of social justice and equity, drawing from her family’s & communities’ experiences in the urban Midwest. Using these stories, she is passionate about bridging the gap between narrative and documentary through poetry.