#1247: We Keep Us Safe: Art for Expanding Abolitionist Imaginaries

This collection of works brings together both drafts and completed artworks co-created by the Abolitionist Futures Collective in Winnipeg, Manitoba. These pieces emerged from a series of workshops attended by artists and community members to imagine safety and care beyond traditional policing and carceral systems. The works included here are: lino prints, posters, and the drafts created across three different workshops. They reflect ongoing conversations the participants had about harm, care, conflict, and collective responsibility in a city shaped by increased policing and systems of incarceration. These artworks are not simply expressions of abolitionist political ideas and imaginaries, they also demonstrate how those ideas are formed. Through making art together, the participants experimented with different artistic and political possibilities, built on each other’s thinking, and expanded what can be imagined. The result is a living archive of collective sense-making.