TEDxSingSing 2020 TEDxSingSing 2020

Love doesn’t like everything it sees | Joseph Wilson | TEDxSingSing 2020

When Joseph Wilson’s younger sister accidentally came out to him during a visit, he will admit, his reaction was less than perfect. One conversation threw a normally close sibling relationship into a rocky period as both Joseph and his sister struggled to resolve this divide. What Joseph could never have predicted is that their shared love for music would be the one thing that could bring these siblings back together and closer than ever. In this emotionally-charged TEDx talk, Joseph lays bare the flaws in his initial reaction to his sister’s confession as well as how he was inspired by his love of music to grow and mend the hurt he caused. Joseph Wilson is "a composer who happens to be incarcerated at Sing Sing,” according to acclaimed mezzo-soprano Joyce Didonato. Joseph utilizes music to examine and expose the effects of socialization of poverty, violence, and xenophobia on him and society as a whole. Wilson is in the process of writing The Libretto and composing an opera titled Tabula Rasa. His works were featured on NBC Today and in Carnegie Hall’s Sing Sing Musical Connection Program’s “The Somewhere Project” and “A Time Like This: Music for Change.”

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TEDxSanQuentin 2016 TEDxSanQuentin 2016

The power of the pronoun | Jarvis Clark | TEDxSanQuentin 2016

Listen to a transgender prisoner's complex journey through the many stages of her life expressed through her Shakespeare-inspired performance. Jarvis Juvan Clark (also knows an “Lady Jae”) is a Transgender performance artist and poet who has been incarcerated for 27 years. Jarvis was born in Detroit, Michigan and moved to San Diego, CA at an early age. While in college, her first role was in a production of the Wiz (1982) where she was cast as a singing and dancing crow. Soon after, she started a dance troupe called Street Jazz Productions (1983-1984). Since being incarcerated, Jarvis has participated in many programs and has received a number of high achievement certificates. In 2013, she arrived at San Quentin and hit the ground running. She’s an original member of A.C.T. (Acting with Compassion and Truth), an LGBTQ-based educational class. The curriculum teaches gender identity awareness. In May of 2015 Jarvis was cast as Lady MacBeth in the Marin Shakespeare Company at San Quentin’s production of MacBeth.

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