"Both an educator and practicing artist, Gaspar has put collaboration, compassion, and critical thinking at the center of her work. At the School of the Art Institute, she teaches students to develop interdisciplinary, research-based approaches to art making. Outside the classroom, she strives to engage communities that might not otherwise be brought into the creative act, whether that be local teens and their families, activists, or people trapped inside the carceral system."
"When I began the project, it was the height of the pandemic. I had already spent a number of years working in prisons and with incarcerated people. I had just had my child, and I was unable to return to Cook County Jail to teach a series of workshops due to the jail being a COVID hotspot. I was trying to figure out what to do, how to respond to the moment, and was mostly at home."
Maria Gaspar grew up in Chicago's Little Village beside the Cook County Jail and experienced its presence from childhood, including a Scared Straight visit. She is an educator and artist who centers collaboration, compassion, and critical thinking. At the School of the Art Institute she teaches interdisciplinary art approaches. She engages teens, families, activists, and incarcerated people to bring communities into creative work. Disappearance Jail began during the COVID-19 pandemic when she could not return to Cook County Jail; she aimed to make that static place more porous through material strategies. Her work foregrounds care, abolition, spatial justice, and the political nature of healing.
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