--- description: Find out how Sable Elyse Smith is shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership. title: 2024 TIME100 Next: Sable Elyse Smith image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d58464cda268099/698a5ba3186892b7fd6c8900/time100-next-2024-sable-elyse-smith.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 02, 2024 # Sable Elyse Smith by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Sable Elyse Smith Sable Elyse SmithTommy Kha Credible Messenger. Sable Elyse Smith is a Credible Messenger. Part of the lexicon of people who work in prisons, the term describes someone who knows personally, intimate­ly, the tolls of time behind the walls. Sable ain’t done no prison bid but has spent near two-thirds of her life visiting her father in California prisons. That ­experience—a part of what binds us, though we’ve spent no more than a few hours ­together—has informed and inspired her lauded inter­disciplinary work. It’s art that interrogates the albatross too often generalized into the vacuous language of mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex. Art that invites, if not requires, us to reflect on the humanity of both the imprisoned and the imprisoners. Art that questions whether we need prison at all. Sable’s work has earned forums in some of the world’s most prestigious venues: the Guggenheim Museum in 2018 (_Coloring Book 9_), the 2022 Whitney Biennial (_A Clockwork_), and the 2022 Venice Biennial (_Landscape_ series) among them. My fellow West Coast native is one of the carceral state’s most important critics. _Jackson is an author_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2024/7023648/sable-elyse-smith/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2024/7023648/sable-elyse-smith/"},"headline":"Sable Elyse Smith","datePublished":"2024-10-02T11:22:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:37:22.408Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2024/7023648/sable-elyse-smith/","keywords":["list","franchise","Magazine","TIME 100 Next","sponsorshipblock"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d58464cda268099/698a5ba3186892b7fd6c8900/time100-next-2024-sable-elyse-smith.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d58464cda268099/698a5ba3186892b7fd6c8900/time100-next-2024-sable-elyse-smith.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2024/7023648/sable-elyse-smith/","name":"Sable Elyse Smith"}}]}] ```