'Inside & Out: Women With Life Sentences' Opens At The Capa Space

YORKTOWN, NY — The best art challenges and then stays with us long after we leave the theater or gallery space. A new photography exhibit is likely to change the beholder in ways that may take a lifetime to grasp entirely.

A new exhibition by Sara Bennett, "Inside & Out: Women With Life Sentences," will be at The Capa Space in Yorktown, from now until July 21.

After 18 years working as a public defender, Bennett started photographing women serving life sentences, both inside and outside prison. Some of the photos were taken inside the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

"Bennett's unsentimental photographic portraits are potent reminders that although convicted of serious crimes, these women are no less human than we are," organizers said. "Bennett challenges the assumption that these women are unredeemed or unforgiveable. Her photographs, which include handwritten text by the women themselves, suggest that people are more than their worse act."

Brooklyn-based Bennett, a 2024 Guggenheim fellow, started photographing women serving life sentences in prison as a way to draw attention to the problems of mass incarceration. Her work has been widely exhibited in museums and galleries, including the Blanton Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, the Museum of the City of New York, the Blue Sky Gallery, Photoville, and Rotterdam Photo 2023. Her work is in the collections of the John Hays Library at Brown University and the Museum of the City of New York, and has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker Photo Booth, Variety and Rolling Stone. Bennett is the 2023 Emerging Laureate of the International Women in Photo Association. Learn more about Bennett on her website.

The Capa Space is located at 2467 Quaker Church Road in Yorktown Heights. The hours for the "Inside & Out: Women With Life Sentences," exhibit are from 1 p.m. - 5 p.m., Thursdays through Sundays.