The University of Idaho’s Prison Education Initiative held the opening reception for its fourth annual Beyond the Wire exhibition on Sept. 26 at Moscow Contemporary, bringing together students, faculty, community members and incarcerated students to admire the art created by individuals involved with the PEI program.
The exhibition features artwork created by incarcerated people and PEI students from across Idaho. The event also serves as PEI’s primary fundraiser, helping provide incarcerated students with educational materials and other resources not covered by tuition assistance, while also providing incarcerated artists with an opportunity to share their work with people outside correctional facilities.
Eleanor Walsh, a PEI intern who helped organize the exhibition, opened the reception by explaining the program’s origins. In 2022, University of Idaho received a Second Chance Pell Grant, providing incarcerated students in Idaho with financial support for higher education. Since then, PEI has supported dozens of students pursuing degrees and recently celebrated its first graduates last spring.
Dr. Annette Folwell, associate dean for undergraduate studies and a longtime supporter of PEI, also having taught in the PEI program for four years, spoke about how education can change the way people view one another.
Folwell said she believes education should encourage people to look beyond what is immediately obvious, question assumptions and recognize the complexity of other people. She applied this to a typical view of incarcerated people, saying, “Sometimes we have the tendency to reduce people to their worst decision, the worst moments they ever lived through, or the label that society puts on them,” encouraging students to look past this. Powell leads by example, saying, “I made the conscious decision when I started this, never to look up what my incarcerated students did that landed them in prison,” because she did not want her students’ pasts to determine how she viewed them in the classroom.
“Human potential does not disappear simply because somebody has made a mistake,” Folwell said.
Folwell encouraged visitors to consider the experiences and emotions behind the artwork as they moved through the exhibition.
Dr. Sean Quinlan, dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, focused his remarks on how much the program has grown since the university received the Second Chance Pell Grant.
Quinlan said more than 160 students have been involved in the statewide prison education network, with about 75 students currently active in the program. He also emphasized the broader impact of education for incarcerated people, including helping students find work, build lives after incarceration and contribute to safer communities.
“Education can actually help people who are incarcerated change their lives,” Quinlan said.
He also thanked the Department of Corrections, students, faculty and community members who have supported the program.
A formerly incarcerated UI student studying criminology spoke about the importance of identity, discussing labeling theory, which examines how labels placed on people by society can influence how they see themselves and how others see them. He said the artwork gives incarcerated people a perfect chance to overcome this and show who they are beyond a legal record or societal label.
The reception also featured remarks from incarcerated students who discussed the role art has played during their incarceration. They spoke about how art can provide a way for incarcerated people to communicate experiences that may be difficult to express through words.
They described the artwork as a connection between incarcerated artists and the outside community, a big emphasis of this exhibit. For some incarcerated people, sharing artwork may be one of the few ways their experiences reach people beyond the prison.
Other speakers discussed how art and education have helped them maintain connections with their families and develop new skills while serving time.
One incarcerated speaker spoke about a 3D-printing project that allowed him to make a small robot and send it to his son for his birthday. He described it as the first time he had been able to make something by hand and send it home to his child while incarcerated. They also discussed participating in UI’s Inside-Out classes, where incarcerated and non-incarcerated students learn together in one classroom, saying that being treated as a classmate rather than as an inmate made the experience special.
Another incarcerated speaker discussed returning to music during incarceration. Before being incarcerated, he always made music with friends, and later, he found an opportunity to create music through a small studio at the facility after being told about it and only half believing it to be true. He said he now listens to the music he creates before going to work, using it as a way to connect with the person he hopes to become in the future.
Several speakers mentioned the late Mr. Manley, the former school director. David Manley played an instrumental role in establishing the prison’s education program, and it was him who developed the idea for the first Beyond the Wire art show. Many speakers shared their experience with him as a positive figure who helped kickstart all of the program’s success, with Manley mentioned as the one who fought for and provided the 3d printer, so the incarcerated student could build what he did for his son.
An incarcerated student said in a 2025 article that Mr. Manley “fought as hard as he could to make sure that we had the opportunities we did.” They honored him with a portrait in his memory at the front and center of the show.
One incarcerated student described it as “Surreal” seeing his art displayed in a formal fashion like in an art gallery, “It’s a trip—seeing this art I always see around just here on display now”.
The reception ended with organizers thanking Moscow Contemporary for hosting the event and visitors for supporting PEI.
Beyond the Wire will remain open at Moscow Contemporary through Oct. 24. The exhibition is free and open to the public, with donations supporting educational opportunities and materials for incarcerated students.
Sam Walsh can be reached at [email protected].