Visiting "The Visiting Room Project"

This week brought the launch of "The Visiting Room Project," a great new oral history project and website.  This new Guardian article provides an overview under the headline "An extraordinary story of forgiveness: from life without parole to finding grace; A new project gives a voice to people serving life sentences in Louisiana – and brought together two men whose lives collided in tragedy." Here is how the site itself describes the project at this link:

The Visiting Room Project is a digital experience that invites the public to sit face-to-face with people serving life without the possibility of parole to hear them tell their stories, in their own words.  More than five years in the making, the site is the only collection of its kind, containing over 100 filmed interviews with people currently serving life without parole.  The interviews were filmed at Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, which is, in many ways, the epicenter of life without parole sentences worldwide.  As of 2022, more than 55,000 Americans are living in prisons serving life without parole, their lives largely hidden from public view.

Marcus Kondkar and Calvin Duncan created The Visiting Room Project.  Marcus is chair of the sociology department at Loyola University New Orleans, where he researches incarceration and sentencing patterns.  Calvin is an expert in post-conviction law. After being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life without parole, he served 28½ years in Louisiana prisons before winning his freedom in 2011.  Originally, Marcus and Calvin gathered information on life sentences for an academic audience, but, due to their shared belief that the public needs to hear directly from people who had served decades in prison, their collaboration became The Visiting Room Project, documenting stories of growth behind prison walls.  Arthur Carter, who has served more than 30 years of a life sentence, captured the meaning of The Visiting Room Project during his interview, stating, “If I have to die here, I appreciate this opportunity to be able to let my voice be heard.”

This is a living project that didn’t conclude when the last interview was filmed. Instead, the project team and the men who were interviewed together created The Visiting Room Collaborative to share and document the continuing impact of these life stories.  The Visiting Room Collaborative has two missions.  First, to ensure that the participants’ loved ones and communities have access to their interviews.  Secondly, to create opportunities for public audiences to engage with the project material through exhibits, screenings, and collaborations with artists.  As The Visiting Room Project continues to evolve, this site will be updated with new information.