Can you see me? is a collaborative three-part exhibition exploring the impact incarceration has on young people. Across three galleries, artwork by currently and formerly incarcerated young people, contemporary artists and arts-justice organizations explores themes of ascendance, innocence and freedom. This exhibition aims to not only highlight the humanity and potential of young people affected by the juvenile justice system, but to create new aspirational possibilities for how art can be a tool of justice and healing. Visitors have the opportunity to interact and contribute to the exhibition, leaving with a lasting impression of humanity instead of criminality, perseverance instead of violence, and hope instead of despair.

In the poem that inspired the exhibition's title a Just-Us participant writes, “Can you save me from this damage that I can’t erase? I ain’t never felt this way before, until I put you in my arms. Can you see me?” The poem and the exhibition asks us to see young people affected by the juvenile justice system as children who have been failed by a system that all too often traumatizes and punishes Black and Brown kids as adults — depriving them of their childhood innocence — while also infantilizing them and taking away their agency.

Themes of healing, imagining, flying, ascending, freedom, play and innocence create nuanced and pluralistic portrayals of juvenile offenders. With a restorative justice lens, the exhibition aims to highlight youths’ humanity and voice, exploring the impact of incarceration on our communities and questioning who has access to contemporary art spaces. The exhibition also connects three communities on Chicago’s South and North sides across distinct spaces that are in conversation with each other.