Mira is an abolitionist artist, educator, researcher, and organizer based in Chicago. Their work explores spacial justice and global histories of resistance with a focus on the role state violence, censorship, and manufactured scarcity have had on our collective ability to imagine and enact other ways of life.
They are currently the Director of Operations at Walls Turned Sideways, Assistant Studio Manager at The Digs Chicago, and a teaching artist with REAL Youth Initiative.
Mira received a Master of Art’s in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from the University of Michigan where they studied Ethnic Studies, Art History, and Ceramics.
They have worked with the following organizations: Walls Turned Sideways, Real Youth Initiative, The Digs, Patric McCoy Legacy Project/Diasporal Rhythms, Groundcover News, Michigan Student Power Alliance, and NON:Opera Arts & Humanities
You can find more of their work on Instagram @coldandwetfromtheearth.
Co-curated by Sarah Ross, Mira Simonton-Chao, and Dave Pabellon
Walls Turned Sideways
July 11 - October 15, 2026
Photos by Sarah-Ji
Prison Papers: Organizing Inside/Outside Solidarity is an exhibition that examines the way prison newspapers facilitate exchange and solidarity across prison walls. Inspired by a series of speculative newspaper covers by incarcerated artist Carlos Ayala, the exhibition features archival newspapers, art and voices of currently and formerly incarcerated journalists and editors.
At a time when freedom of speech in the U.S. is increasingly under attack and print media is less and less accessible to those inside prisons, there is a dire need to refine our organizing strategies and tactics. Prison newspapers, and the communities that have sprung up around them, offer a rich history of inside/outside organizing across many decades. As powerful tools for spreading information, prison newspapers make three kinds of vital connections to organize and build solidarity: the making, circulation and reading of these papers builds community between people in prison; broadcasts ideas across prisons, states, and territories; and fosters relationships with outside communities. Prison Papers responds to the urgent need to highlight the voices of currently and formerly incarcerated journalists and organizers in order to learn about modes of resistance developed within a deeply authoritarian system. The exhibition examines prison papers starting in the 1970s, when inside papers and solidarity publications were abundant, to their near disappearance in the ‘90s, to our current epoch which sees a new resurgence in inside/outside publishing. Prison Papers offers critical insights into how we might build deeper bonds with incarcerated communities today and organize for freedom and liberation.
Generous support for this exhibition came from IL Humanities with archival loans from Interference Archive, Fugitive Materials, Katrina Baugh, Sandra Brown, Rev. Jason Lydon, Mary Patten and Joe S.
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