we just telling stories is about the Medea Project Theater for incarcerated women, and the process that enables this theater ensemble to take a group of incarcerated women to a place where they are able tell their often painful and disturbing stories to sold out audiences and do nothing less than rock the house. Many of these women inmates have forgotten how to dream after having spent too many years lost in a narcotic fog. During the process of building a stage play they begin to reclaim a sense of self worth and the ability to dream again. The telling and retelling of tragic personal stories become the way they gain a new perspective on life and what they have lived through. There is a power in telling a personal story. This work will let us witness this power in action. Many of the women have clearly stated that it was during their involvement with the Medea Project, that they felt, for the first time a sense of self worth. Hopefully they will retain this feeling once the curtain has closed and hopefully at the end of the film the viewer will have a deeper understanding and knowledge of the numerous and nameless women and mothers that are imprisoned each and every year.

Andrews’ work focuses on issues of race, identity and power. He works in video, photography and installation and has shown extensively throughout the U.S. and internationally on cable television and in museums and galleries. Lawrence Andrews received support for this project by the Hass Creative Work Fund and the NEA.

Images: stills from we just telling stories, 2002

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