This summer, the Barnes Foundation and Mural Arts Philadelphia present Just Us, a new exhibition of original work by artists from Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Rec Crew — a 24-week job readiness and life skills program for justice-impacted young adults — and artists incarcerated at State Correctional Institution Phoenix, southeast Pennsylvania’s maximum-security prison for men.

Just Us opens June 26 and runs through August 24 in the Collection Gallery’s first-floor classroom at the Barnes Foundation. Free with general admission.

What Just Us Is and Where It Comes From

The Rec Crew is part of Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Restorative Justice program, which works with individuals who are incarcerated, on parole or probation, in home detainment, or carrying open criminal cases. This spring, Rec Crew members participated in art education classes in the Barnes collection taught by instructor Christine Stoughton and Bill Perthes, curator of community vitality at the Barnes.

The cohort also completed art-making workshops at Second State Press — a Philadelphia printmaking organization — with Stoughton and its executive director, Emma Flick.

The artists at SCI Phoenix work year-round in a dedicated studio space inside the facility, producing original artwork and visual elements used in Mural Arts’ public mural projects across the city. For Just Us, Perthes made visits to SCI Phoenix throughout the spring to work with the artists directly on the exhibition’s thematic direction. The resulting work from both tracks — the Rec Crew and the SCI Phoenix cohort — converges in this show.

Second State Press, where Rec Crew members completed their workshop sessions, was a full production partner in this exhibition rather than a venue. Emma Flick, its executive director, co-led those sessions alongside Stoughton. The press’s involvement placed specific studio processes at the center of the Rec Crew’s spring production work, and the resulting pieces reflect that particular context.

The Title Just Us and What It Carries

The title operates on three registers simultaneously. It derives from the word “justice” — a claim the exhibition’s subject makes without elaboration. It names the collegial connection between the Rec Crew and the men at SCI Phoenix, whose meeting through this project is itself part of what the work is about. And it proposes, as Perthes described it, that these artists are “just like the rest of us.” The artworks address that proposition directly.

The Barnes and Mural Arts launched their collaborative restorative justice initiative in 2018; Just Us represents its eighth year of active production. The scope this spring extended across three sites — the Barnes collection, Second State Press, and SCI Phoenix itself — a structure that shapes what is on view. This is work made through institutional access rather than in spite of institutional barriers, though the carceral context does not disappear at the gallery door.

Just Us at the Barnes Foundation This Summer

That continuity connects to the Barnes’ own founding commitments. Dr. Albert C. Barnes established the foundation in 1922 as a civil rights advocate who supported young Black artists through a dedicated scholarship program, collaborated with philosopher Alain Locke and activist Charles S. Johnson during the Harlem Renaissance, and organized his collection around deliberately non-hierarchical principles. Programming like Just Us engages that lineage, placing artists from the justice system inside the collection.

Jane Golden, executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia, described the exhibition’s animating quality as “the fellowship at its heart” — across the Rec Crew and the SCI Phoenix artists, between the two institutions, and between the artists and the broader public. The framing is useful: it identifies what the show offers without asking visitors to resolve the structural conditions that brought these artists to the Barnes rather than more conventional gallery contexts.

Just Us is free with general admission to the Barnes Foundation, 2025 Benjamin Franklin Parkway. During July, the Barnes is offering free admission to Philadelphia residents in conjunction with programming marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. The exhibition runs through August 24 in the first-floor classroom of the Collection Gallery.

About Post Author

Allan Lane

Philadelphia born and bred, Allan Lane is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of digital magazines. He launched his first publication, SportBikes Inc Magazine in 2010, followed by dosage MAGAZINE in 2019. Recently, Allan launched his third online publication, Club For Man. As a journalist, Allan covers fashion, lifestyle, culture, art, and motorcycles.

See author's posts