Exhibition still of Sherrill Roland, Hinterland. Courtesy the artist.

Exhibition still of Sherrill Roland, Hinterland. Courtesy the artist.

Exhibition still of Sherrill Roland, Hinterland. Courtesy the artist.

Exhibition still of Sherrill Roland, Hinterland. Courtesy the artist.

Exhibition still of Sherrill Roland, Hinterland. Courtesy the artist.

Exhibition still of Sherrill Roland, Hinterland. Courtesy the artist.

Installation view of Sherrill Roland’s The Jumpsuit Project. Photo credit: Jason Mandella.

Photo of Sherrill Roland engaging with individuals for The Jumpsuit Project for the exhibition “Fictions” at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Photo credit: Rebecca Alice Bennett.

Photo of Sherrill Roland engaging with individuals for The Jumpsuit Project at Alcatraz. Photo credit: Baldemar Arroyo.

Photo of Sherrill Roland engaging with individuals for The Jumpsuit Project in Washington, D.C. Photo credit: Christian Carter Ross.

Photo of Sherrill Roland engaging with a group for The Jumpsuit Project at Brooklyn Public Library. Photo credit: Gregg Richards.

The Jumpsuit Project(s)

Sherrill Roland is an interdisciplinary artist who creates art that challenges ideas around controversial social and political constructs, and generates a safe space to process, question, and share.

Artist Bio

Sherrill Roland’s The Jumpsuit Project(s) is a series of collaborative, cross-disciplinary exhibitions across North Carolina.

The criminal justice system in the U.S. is intentionally fragmented and often invisible to those without direct experience of it. In The Jumpsuit Project(s), Roland collaborates with returning citizens, law students, and North Carolina art institutions to foster connections both within and beyond the carceral system. These exhibitions look to reshape the narrative around criminal justice by sparking dialogue, disrupting conventional spaces in the art world and higher education, and addressing issues that are often overlooked.

The exhibition Hinterland at Gatewood Studio Arts Center, UNC Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina from January 27 through March 17, 2025 marked the Creative Capital premiere of The Jumpsuit Project(s). Hinterland, a collaboration with Roland, Michael A. Betts II, and Alim Braxton, featured collaborative artworks that highlighted the materiality of the carceral space.

Discipline
Multimedia, Social Practice
Award Year
2021
Status

In Progress

Themes

Events

Sherrill Roland: Hinterland

January 27–March 17, 2025

UNC Greensboro College of Visual and Performing Arts
Gatewood Studio Arts Center, 527 Highland Ave, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA

An African American man, wearing green baseball cap, black sweatshirt and black pants leaning on white steel I-beam pillar. Behind him is the corner of a studio, with the left wall expose brick and the perpendicular right wall painted white. A cinder block, plywood and wooden frames are laid on the floor and along the wall.

Sherrill Roland

Durham, NC

Sherrill Roland is an interdisciplinary artist who creates art that challenges ideas around controversial social and political constructs, and generates a safe space to process, question, and share. He was born in Asheville, NC, and received an MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Inspired by his experience in prison for a crime he did not commit, he founded The Jumpsuit Project to raise awareness around issues related to mass incarceration. Roland’s socially-engaged art project has been presented at Open Engagement Chicago, Oakland City Hall, and the Michigan School of Law. He was awarded the Center for Documentary Studies Post-MFA Fellowship in the Documentary Arts at Duke University in Durham, NC, and the Rights of Return USA Fellowship. After completing the Fountainhead Residency in Miami, Florida, Roland returned to North Carolina as an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center of Art + Innovation.

Events