Pastor Marcos Pereira da Silva and prisoner in Polinter Prison, Rio de Janeiro. © Gary Knight, VII Agency
Dispatches Mag out today with the theme Out of Poverty. It includes Gary Knight’s photo essay from Polinter Prison, Rio de Janeiro.
I have been waiting for Knight to publish these images. An internet-murmur a few weeks ago alerted me to his work in Brazil’s prisons. As I fleshed out the scenario at Polinter Prison those few weeks ago, I won’t go in to huge detail in this post.
In a nutshell, Pastor Marcos Pereira da Silva visits the critically overcrowded prison with his unique brand of evangelism. It starts with anthems of praise and ends up in wailing convulsions and the exorcism of spirits. He acts generally messianic and the prisoners (at least those pressed against the bars at the front of the cages) seem quite responsive.
Knight is uncomfortable with these enactions and so am I.
Click here or the image below and you’ll be directed to 9 minutes youtube footage of the said pastor doing his thing.
Still from video of Pastor Marcos Periera de Silva in Polinter Prison, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Prison Photography 
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May 21, 2009 at 11:15 pm
jamblichus
Interesting and disturbing. Possession as public spectacle…
Have you read Michel De Certeau’s “The Possession at Loudun”?
One of the most fascinating books I’ve read… Well worth looking at for his insight into the relationship between incarceration, possession, political repression and religion. And damn those cages were overcrowded… I’d opt for a spot of exorcism as a break from that too.