“Send Me Home” Documentary details Rickey Jackson’s ties to the Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland native Rickey Jackson was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 39 years. In 2014, at the time of his release, his sentence was the longest of any US inmate found to be innocent. His story is shared in Send Me Home, an immersive 360° documentary that will be featured next week at the Cleveland International Film Festival. The documentary was partially filmed at the Cleveland Museum of Art due to Rickey’s lifelong interest in art and his fond childhood memories of days spent at the CMA.

“It was maybe a fifteen-minute walk from home. It was nice. That was my place. I hung out there a lot when things weren’t going right at home or when I just needed to feed my mind with something and I couldn’t get it in the neighborhood. That’s what drew me to the museum; I knew something in there was interesting. I really wondered, ‘What’s in there?’ I got up my nerve and went there one day, and I was fascinated,” Rickey said about his fist time at the museum.

Lonelyleap, the documentary creators, had wanted to create an original work around criminal justice reform and racial inequity but ultimately began developing Send Me Home after seeing Rickey Jackson’s TED Talk a year after his release. In the talk, Rickey spoke about his experience visiting the Cleveland Museum of Art for the first time — about it being a special, private place for him as a child.

Rickey has acquired a deep sense of connection to the place that originally fascinated him. “I get a sense of belonging to something and being attached to something. I lost that with my old neighborhood; so now when I’m at the museum, that’s when I really get a sense of attachment to a place where I belong, because of the memories. I visit with my wife; we’re lifelong members,” Rickey said.

“I get a sense of belonging to something and being attached to something...” — Rickey Jackson on his connection with the CMA

Lonelyleap noticed Rickey’s connection to the CMA when filming with him onsite.

“It was clear during filming that Rickey felt a connection to the museum. While he gravitated toward familiar spaces in the museum, such as the armor court, he was seemingly able to settle in. There was an undeniable ease, an extension of wonder that Rickey demonstrated while perusing the collection,” said Lonelyleap’s Cassandra Evanisko.

During Rickey’s years of wrongful incarceration, he rediscovered the freedom and the escape that art could offer. “I used to order free magazines — trial subscriptions. I tried to keep up with art and what was going on in the art world. Not only for that sake but because of the way art made me feel. I don’t know anyone who could walk into a museum and get stressed out or feel frustrated or angry. There’s so much beauty around you. And the atmosphere — as soon as you walk into a museum, this aura comes over you. ‘Wow, man, I can finally take a load off and just let my imagination run free.’ That’s what I love about museums. I think everybody gets some kind of sensation like that when they go into a museum — because it’s human treasure.”

“The profound escape the Cleveland Museum of Art offered Rickey as a child felt ripe for a 360° experience and totally aligned with our goal to create an immersive experience grounded in authenticity. We wanted to give Rickey the space to reflect on the ideas of freedom, escape and agency the museum gave him. A 360° documentary was the perfect vehicle to contextualize that story,” Anne Hollowday, Lonelyleap’s Creative Director notes.

Lonelyleap reached out to Rickey through the Ohio Innocence Project and he was excited about the VR aspect of the storytelling approach. “We found ourselves situating the story in a different moment of time, exploring the dissonance of spending almost 40 years away from home,” Hollowday said.

“In many ways, Rickey’s situation and resilience are an anomaly, but his conviction as an unjustly sentenced young black man is all too familiar. We wanted to create a simple, human portrait that compelled viewers to question the structures that failed Rickey and to consider the continued impact felt by countless others currently navigating our criminal justice and prison systems,” Evanisko continued. “Our hope was that by sharing this one story of injustice, of time and opportunity lost, Send Me Home could spotlight the larger systemic issues within our criminal justice system, such as racial prejudice, wrongful conviction, and mass incarceration.”