Keramet Reiter

UC Irvine’s PrisonPandemic collection consists of almost 5,000 letters and phone calls from incarcerated people describing their experiences while incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2023). The collection, and its details of carceral life, provides rare insight into one of our society’s greatest modern tragedies and how people caught in this tragedy made meaning of their experiences. One-sixth of the collection is currently available on a full-text searchable website. We propose to substantially expand the number of stories available on our website, increase accessibility of the stories, and expand outreach and awareness of the website – through an art installation of refurbished prison phones playing archived stories, a webinar, and an increased social media presence.