Paul Gaughin asked in one of his paintings in Tahiti, “Where Do We Come From?  What are We? Where are We going?”  Similarly, basic ontological questions asked of and by the prison artists, Who am I? What do I do?  How do I create meaning?  Such questions lead to reflection and to growth.  This is not to say it is all therapeutic.  It is pleasurable, it is possible, and it is profitable. It is the inside or outside grounding of spiritual, psychological, social, and political change.  The questions of philosophy easily and necessarily become questions of social change.  Gaughin’s questions lead to the critique of settler colonialism, Janie Paul’s to the critique of capitalism itself. More

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