For prison inmates, being a parent is hard. You’re far away but you’re still here. And the visits and letters, those small points of contact, can become that much tougher for the distance.

Luna Garcia swipes through the photos on her phone until she finds it — the one of a young man with a slight mustache standing against a wall, his blue shirt neatly pressed, holding a chubby baby girl.

It’s the kind of picture someone might snap at a holiday dinner, a grainy image of a girl and her dad. But just out of the frame are armed guards and metal doors. It was visiting day at San Quentin State Prison.

Sean Sanchez knows the routine.

Before anyone can ask, the 12-year-old pulls his pants pockets inside out and takes off his shoes, wiggling his toes to prove he’s not concealing drugs or weapons. Cleared by deputies, he’s allowed inside San Francisco County Jail No. 5 to see his father.

We pay a high price when our loved ones are entangled in a punitive justice system that often leads to incarceration. The Sentence Unseen bears witness to the impacts of the US criminal justice system when family members are taken away from our community. The exhibit sheds light on the collateral consequences of arrest and incarceration on children, youth, families, and communities while celebrating the heart and resiliency of those impacted.

The Welcome Home Project is a collection of stories and photographs of 20 formerly incarcerated men and women who were able to turn their lives around after many years in jails and prisons.

A special project of Community Works with Costanoan Research, Inc., Ohlone Elders and Youth Speak: Restoring a California Legacy is an exploration of the efforts of three generations of Ohlone people committed to keeping their cultures alive and thriving.

Well Contested Sites is a 13- minute dance/theater film that explores the issue of mass incarceration and the complexity of experience faced by those who are incarcerated in jails/prisons. The film is a collaboration between a group of men who were previously incarcerated, Bay Area performing artists, choreographer Amie Dowling and filmmaker Austin Forbord. The piece was created and filmed on Alcatraz Island.

The Japanese-American Internment Project is a powerful living history exhibition documenting the experiences of Japanese-American internees. This multimedia exhibition, developed by Community Works with students at George Washington, Balboa, and Horace Mann schools in San Francisco, honors those who were interned or impacted by the internment. Drawing on the oral histories of Japanese-Americans who were themselves interned or whose parents were internees, the students worked to create a unique exhibition that simultaneously chronicles the experiences of one generation and the reactions of another.

The Long Walk to Freedom is a multi-generational living history project and exhibit that explores a crucial era of American history when ordinary people did extraordinary things. The project was created by Community Works with funds provided by a California Arts Council’s “Arts in Education Demonstration” grant.  Functioning largely as an educational vehicle by youth and for youth, the exhibit features photographs, archival materials, quotes, an interactive DVD and a 15-minute video that highlight the contributions of 12 civil rights activists who changed the face of our nation through their vision and valiance. The example of their lives provides our youth with a blueprint of activism for decades to come.