Chastity Boyd, an inmate at the Topeka Correctional Facility delivers her monologue as part of the Performing to Empower Awareness and Reinvent Lives (PEARL) project at the prison.

So Yeon Park had never worked in a prison before this summer.

Her experience with female inmates at the Topeka Correctional Facility helped her humanize a group often thought of as a number in the system.

“They want to be connected with people,” says Park, a Kansas University assistant professor of art. “I had to say things like, ‘I’d hug you if I could right now.'”

That’s because, even though Park was asking the inmates to talk about painful moments of their past, there still are restrictions when you’re working in a prison.

Park and Carol Bradbury, a Topeka artist, recently completed the first round of workshops they’re calling the PEARL project – Performing to Empower Awareness and Reinvent Lives. The two artists recruited participants in two different groups – one at the prison, the other parolees in Topeka – for a series of 12 workshops. The goal was for the offenders to create a monologue discussing some piece of their lives.

“Instead of fighting back – which is often physically – they can use their voice,” Bradbury says.

A video of the performances in the prison is showing this week at the gallery of the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H. Participants in the parole version of PEARL will present their monologues at 7 p.m. Friday at the arts center. The performances will be followed by a panel discussion featuring several people involved in the program.