Jenny Polak’s projects use ink and paper, building materials, upcycled fabrics and slipcast ceramics, to imagine prison abolition, shared empowerment against the violence of borders, protective garments, and other strategies for surviving hostile authorities. Her solitary studio practice and collaborations go hand-in-hand.

Since 2020 she has been working with members of The Fortune Society—people rebuilding lives after incarceration—to make collaborative artworks that give a platform to their experience, a presence too rarely found in the public visual landscape. Their current project envisions fantastical translucent protective garments whose stuffing is made from individual participants’ shredded documents pertaining to the many layers of bureaucracy that hold them back. This project will be on view at MoMA PS1 as part of the residency’s culminating exhibition, open November 14 2024 – March 2025.

Jenny has created and co-created site-responsive and community engaged projects for Houston, TX, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, MoMA/PS1, Concerned Citizens of Hobart, IN, the Center for Arts and Public Life, Chicago, Griffiss International Sculpture Garden, Rome NY, Exit Art, The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and the Soap Factory, Minneapolis among others.