We were lucky to catch up with Katherin Hervey recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Katherin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Right now my most meaningful project is a podcast I’m co-creating called Cell Block Talk: Beyond the Walls. I’m creating it with my friend Christopher Blackwell. Chris is an award-winning incarcerated journalist who regularly contributes to some of our largest national publications (NYTimes, Washington Post, Boston Globe). He dropped out of school when he was 14 and today he’s earned a college degree, become a restorative justice facilitator, and co-founded a grassroots organization called Look 2 Justice with his wife, Dr. Chelsea Moore. The organization is led by systems-impacted people and provides civic education and empowerment programs for incarcerated people and their loved ones. Chris and I met over ten years ago when I was a volunteer college instructor inside a Washington prison for an organization called University Beyond Bars. Since then, we’ve kept in close contact supporting each other’s work and it’s been so amazing to watch him become a speaker, organizer, and prolific writer in such esteemed publications as the NYT. His writings highlight the human side of the millions of people caught in the cycle of incarceration. This vision drives him and I’m so honored to be creating and hosting this podcast together.
The podcast explores ways to treat all our fellow human beings with respect and compassion, while challenging harmful structures and experiences like mass incarceration, poverty, and trauma. Each episode invites compelling and accomplished thought leaders from both sides of the prison wall, asking challenging questions that call for a more creative vision of the world and remind us we’re more connected than we often believe.
Our first guests are Artie Gonzalez and Marlee Liss. Artie spent 8 years in solitary confinement after he was tried as an adult at age 16. He’s now a speaker, author, filmmaker, and advocate for legislative reforms. Marlee made history in the justice system when her sexual assault case became the 1st in North America to conclude with restorative justice through the courts. She is an award-winning speaker, restorative justice advocate, author, and somatic educator who has supported thousands of women and non-binary folk in healing shame and transforming trauma. We’re diving deep with all our guests, talking about personal and collective liberation, restorative justice, radical accountability, and the revolutionary power of compassion. The topics are heavy, but we infuse light and hope into all the conversations. We’re just getting started and the depth of our discussions have been off the charts! I can’t wait to share them with the world.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
While most people would classify me as a documentary filmmaker, I see myself as a storyteller. I work in different mediums and for the most part everything I create speaks to the experience of people our society tends to lack compassion for – the incarcerated, the poor, the addicted, the other – people we don’t want to look at because they confront the parts of ourselves we don’t like. I dive into the messy complexities of the human experience because truth and poetry reside there. My work asks: How can we do the work of truth and reconciliation not only within our culture, but within ourselves?
My work is informed by my 15 years in criminal justice and prison reform, where I’ve worked as a filmmaker, restorative justice advocate, prison college instructor, and trial attorney for the Los Angeles Public Defender. I believe we need to create movements that liberate all people, and this begins with me and how I put myself out in the world through my art and actions. My journey into the justice system led me to create my first feature film, “The Prison Within” (Discovery Plus). The film follows a group of men inside San Quentin Prison as they come together to heal with survivors of violent crime using restorative justice processes. It’s an intimate exploration of the resilience of the human spirit and the healing and transformation possible when we connect with each other’s humanity. The film was acquired by Gravitas Ventures and is also a credited class titled “Pathways to Justice” at Seattle University School of Law, part of an educational curriculum for federal and state prisons nationwide, and available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV and numerous streaming and cable platforms. I believe the film is doing so well because it speaks to our deepest instincts for unity and connection.
Since the release of the film people have reached out to me to tell their stories and I’ve been honored to create short films that petition for presidential clemency for people who are unjustly imprisoned. Recently, I’ve also come on as a Producer for a film called “Trouble Finds Me”. The film follows a group of young people through an academic year at Free LA High School, a juvenile courthouse turned high school for students pushed out of LA’s public education system. Free LA is a cop-free campus that practices peace building and transformative justice instead of conventional discipline. With the same approach, they teach U.S. History and World Economics, honestly explaining systems of exploitation while radically re-imagining what living as a liberated community could look like. The film follows young adults who are also grappling with cases in the courts – really showing them straddling these two worlds of restorative vs. punitive practices. I’m working with two amazingly talented and thoughtful filmmakers, Claire Hannah Collins & Corleone Ham, who really practice the ethics of documentary filmmaking at every turn. It’s an important film and I’m honored to be a part of it.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is that I get to be me and continually grow into myself. I see now that everything I’ve created was a way to work through something in the world I did not understand, or something in me that was causing pain. I create to move through the pain and find joy and hope.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
We’re taught since birth that to be successful we have to go go go produce produce produce. I’m still unlearning this. Learning to slow down. To go at my pace. Which is often slow and thoughtful – and this is okay. The inspiration comes in the quiet moments.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.katherinhervey.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katherinhervey
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katherin.hervey
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherin-hervey-j-d-9a252a4/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/katherinhervey
- Other: cellblocktalk.com troublefindsmedoc.com
Image Credits
Beach Photo: Rachel Saldivar