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Kickstarter: ‘Prison Photography’ on the Road

August 24, 2011 in Opinion | Tags: , , , | by | 5 comments

THE BLOG GROWS LEGS

It’s with excited anticipation and a good amount of nerves that I announce the launch of my Kickstarter project Prison Photography on the Road: Stories Behind the Photos.

I propose a 12-week road-trip across America meeting many of the leading photographers who, in the past 40 years, have documented the rise of the U.S. prison industrial complex. I’ll also be speaking with some of the leading practitioners in prison arts, prison education and advocacy.

Interviewees include:

This is a journalism project, the product of which is the approximately 40 interviews I will conduct. They’ll be made available, via Creative Commons license, to any and all in the photo and prison reform communities. In addition, my writings will be free to distribute with attribution to interested parties.

Fundraising begins today and continues for the next 36 days.

Please visit my Kickstarter page to read more about Why, Where, What and How.

INCENTIVES

This Kickstarter is a little different to others as I have secured many generous and talented photographers as collaborators who’ve put forth prints to help me raise money. Huge thanks to all of them.

In that there’s only one item for each of the incentive levels above $200, the thing operates like a “buy now”-priced auction.

The incentives at $10, $20, $50, $75 and $125 are self-explanatory.

On my Kickstarter page, the prints available between $200 and $1,000 have full descriptions. Those same descriptions and the currently available images are below.

Every supporter who buys a print more than $200 in value also gets a postcard, mixtape and self-published photobook Prison Photography in the Era of Mass Incarceration (56 pages).

ALL who donate – at any level – become official supporters and have their names listed on my website and in the acknowledgements of the self-published book.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR A LARGER VIEW

JAMEL SHABAZZ

Photographer: Jamel Shabazz
Title: ‘Female Blood’
Year: 1995
Print: 8″x10″ Resin Coated B&W print.
Signed.

Print PLUS a postcard, mixtape (CD) and a self-published book – $600 BUY NOW

FRANK MCMAINS

Photographer: Frank McMains
Title: Untitled #1, from ‘Angola Boxing’ series
Year: 2010
Size: 8″x12″
Print: B/W digital print on archival paper
Signed, uneditioned.

Print PLUS a postcard and a mixtape – $100. BUY NOW.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

STEVE DAVIS

Photographer: Steve Davis
Title: Untitled #1, from ‘Captured Youth’ series
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, heavyweight archival paper
Signed, special edition of 4.

Print PLUS a postcard, a mixtape and a self-published book – going for $300. BUY NOW.

Photographer: Steve Davis
Title: Untitled #2, from ‘Captured Youth’ series
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, heavyweight archival paper
Signed, special edition of 4.

Print PLUS a postcard, a mixtape and a self-published book – going for $300. BUY NOW.

Photographer: Steve Davis
Title: Untitled #3, from ‘Captured Youth’ series
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, heavyweight archival paper
Signed, special edition of 4.

Print PLUS a postcard, a mixtape and a self-published book – going for $300. BUY NOW.

Photographer: Steve Davis
Title: Untitled #4, from ‘Captured Youth’ series
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, heavyweight archival paper
Signed, special edition of 4.

Print PLUS a postcard, a mixtape and a self-published book – going for $300. BUY NOW.

 – – – – – – – – – – – – –

RICHARD ROSS

Harrison County Juvenile Detention Center in Biloxi, Mississippi operated by Mississippi Security Services, formerly the Biloxi City Jail, Currently run by Director Warden. A fire in 1982 killed 27 inmates. There is currently a lawsuit against them which forced them to reduce their population. They must now maintain an 8:1 inmate to staff ratio. © Richard Ross

Photographer: Richard Ross
Title: ’12-year old at Harrison County’
Year: 2009
Size: 9″x12″
Print: Color, Epson digital print on enhanced matt
Signed

Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $1,000. BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

BRUCE JACKSON

Photographer: Bruce Jackson
Title: ‘Dominoes. Death Row, Texas’
Year: 1979
Size: 12.5″x17″ on 13″x19″ paper
Print: B&W, Ilford Gallerie Gold Fibre Silk Paper.
Edition: #3 of an edition of 20
Signed
From Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian, “In this Timeless Time”: Living and Dying on Death Row in America (University of North Carolina Press, 2011)

Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $800. BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

VICTOR BLUE

Gang members of the Mara 18 help another with his wounds in the El Hoyon prison in Escuintla Guatemala Tuesday August 23, 2005. El Hoyon was the scene of a prison riot the week before in which members of a rival gang, the Mara Salvatrucha, killed 23 members of the Mara 18 using firearms, knives, and handgrenades. © Victor Blue.

Photographer: Victor Blue
Title: ‘Closing a Wound, Mara 18’
Year: 2005
Size: 11″x14″
Print: Color, archival print
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $200. BUY HERE

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LORI WASELCHUK

Mary Bloomer, a prison security guard, watches from the levee as prisoners form Field Line 15 from Wolf Dormitory at Camp C at Angola, Louisiana’s maximum security prison. Angola is a massive top-security prison, occupying flat delta land equal to the size of Manhattan.  Prisoners walk or ride in buses to and from their jobs every day. © Lori Waselchuk

Photographer: Lori Waselchuk
Title: ‘Prison Guard Watches from the Levee, Angola Prison’
Year: 2007
Size: 12″ X 24″
Print: B&W, archival pigment print
Edition: #2 of an edition of 15
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $400. BUY HERE

Lloyd Bone, a prisoner at Louisiana’s State Penitentiary, rides atop a horse driven hearse carrying the body of fellow prisoner George Alexander, who died at the age of 56.  The hearse was hand built by prison carpenters. The elaborate funerals for inmates buried in the prison’s cemetery is an example of how hospice volunteers (with the support of Warden Burl Cain) have created a tone of reverence for the dying and the dead at Angola Prison. © Lori Waselchuk

Photographer: Lori Waselchuk
Title: ‘Lloyd Bone Drives the Funeral Hearse’
Year: 2007
Size: 7″ x 14″
Print: B&W, archival pigment print
Edition: #7 of an edition of 25
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape. SOLD

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

JAN STURMANN

Wards offer each other comfort and support before entering the Sweat Lodge. No blood has ever been spilt in the Sweat Lodge area, and gang rivalries and personal disputes are often resolved during this time. Since 1991 Native American Spiritual Leader Jimi Castillo has conducted this ceremony each Thursday at the Herman G. Stark Youth Correctional  Facility in Chino, CA, east of LA. The ceremony is open to all wards, irrespective of race. © Jan Sturmann

Photographer: Jan Sturmann
Title: ‘Juvenile Prison Sweat Lodge’
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, archival inkjet print
Not editioned
Signed
$50

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

ARA OSHAGAN

Photographer: Ara Oshagan
Title: ‘Liz, 21 years old, Chowchilla State Prison, CA, 2003’
Year: 2003
Size: 30″x8″
Print: Color and B&W, archival pigment ink print (Giclee)
Edition #2 of 10
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $400. BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

STEPHEN TOURLENTES

Photographer: Stephen Tourlentes
Title: Comstock, NY State Prison
Year: 2009
Print: 11″x14″ B&W, Archival Pigment Print
Aritist’s Proof, Signed

Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $500 – BUY NOW

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

SYE WILLIAMS

Photographer: Sye Williams
Title: ‘The Four’
Year: 2001
Size: 11″x14″
Print: Color
1st edition 2/25
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $900. BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

ADAM AMENGUAL

Photographer: Adam Amengual
Title: ‘Adrien Caceres’ from the “Homies” series
Year: 2011
Size: 11″x14″
Print: Color, archival inkjet print
Edition #2 of 10
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $750. BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

JENN ACKERMAN

Julia Lish, a correctional officer, comforts an inmate during one his psychotic episodes. “Its going to be OK,” she repeats as he cries and yells to the voices in his head. © Jenn Ackermann

Photographer: Jenn Ackerman
Title: ‘A Hand to Hold’ (2008) from the series, Trapped.
Print: 11×14. B&W, archival matte.
Edition: #2 of an edition of 25.
Signed.

Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $600. BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

TIM GRUBER

The sun breaks through the bars of the Nursing and Hospice Care Unit at the Kentucky State Reformatory, as part of the series ‘Served Out.’ © Tim Gruber

Photographer: Tim Gruber
Title: ‘Sunset Behind Bars’
Year: 2008
Print: 14×11″ B&W, archival pigment print on matte paper.
Edition: #1 of an edition of 25.
Signed.

Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $500. BUY HERE

MAX WHITTAKER

Any photo from Max Whittaker‘s archive, signed and printed at 11″x17″.

Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $200. BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

ADAM SHEMPER


Photographer: Adam Shemper
Title: ‘In the Wheat Fields, Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, Louisiana’
Year: 2000
Print: 9″x9″. B&W on archival paper
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $325. BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

JON LOWENSTEIN

Photographer: Jon Lowenstein.
Title: Undocumented Mexican Immigrants – Tent City.
Year: 2009.
Print: 11″x 14″ coloor print, on Hannemuehle archival paper.
Signed.

Print, PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape. = $1,000 – BUY HERE

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

MIKHAEL SUBOTZKY

Photographer: Incarcerated student of Mikhael Subotzky
Title: Maplank in the Workshop, Pollsmoor Prison, 2005
Year: 2005
Print: Silver gelatin print on fiber paper, B&W 35x50cm (frame approx 50x65cm)
Edition: # 1/9
Unsigned, framed.

Print, PLUS postcard, mixtape and self=published book = $1,000 – BUY HERE

___________________________________________________

Please forward the link to this page and my Kickstarter page to anybody whom you think may be interested in the project and potentially donating. Cheers!

___________________________________________________

Here’s a YouTube version of my Kickstarter pitch for those of you who can’t embed from any other video sites (don’t worry the WordPress video upgrade is on its way)

‘Spanish Roads’ by Txema Salvans

August 22, 2011 in Documentary, Fine Art, Non-Prison | Tags: , , | by | 1 comment

Following on from my comparative analysis of Mishka Henner and Paolo Patrizi’s documenting of Italian roadside prostitutes, a reader directed me to Txema Salvans‘ Spanish Roads.

I wanted to alert you of this series and suggest that the impact of this work and that of Henner and Patrizi for American (and in my case, British) audiences is the shock of the new. It is a surprise to see scenes of prostitution in public and plain view. The juxtaposition of illicit activity and wide open vistas is jarring and it corrects the over-romanticisation of Mediterranean culture that often occurs in the U.S.

Indeed, with Salvans’ work, one can begins to think that roadside prostitution may not be an uncommon part of the contemporary southern European landscape. From Salvans’ statement:

“These are the beings we fleetingly glimpse when our comings and goings in our safe cars allow us to perceive the scars of a landscape where both the city and the country disappear; uncertain scenarios that expose the cruelty of a breakneck productive culture that invents uninhabitable spaces that are nonetheless lived in.”

All images © Txema Salvans

Photographing the Prostitutes of Italy’s Backroads: Google Street View vs. Boots on the Ground

August 19, 2011 in Documentary, Non-Prison, Visual Feeds | Tags: , , , , , , , | by | 17 comments

© Paolo Patrizi, from the series Migration

This week, I wrote two pieces for Wired on Google Street View. The first was a gallery of the various projects spawned by GSV, and the second was a piece about authorship and the repetition of nine scenes in two of the most well known GSV projects (Jon Rafman’s Nine Eyes and Michael Wolf’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and FY.)

Anecdotally, the photo-thinkers out there are converging on Doug Rickard’s A New American Picture as the most robust work. A close contender though is the relatively new No Man’s Land by Mishka Henner.

© Mishka Henner

No Man’s Land (more images here) is a disturbingly large selection of GSV screen-grabs of (presumably) prostitutes awaiting customers on the back roads of Italy. Henner says:

I came across communities using Street View to trade information on where to find sex workers. I thought that was the subject to work with. Much of my work is really about photography and this subject tapped into so many aspects of it; The fact the women’s faces are blurred by the software, that they look at the car with the same curiosity that we have when looking at them, and finally, that the liminal spaces they occupy are in the countryside or on the edge of our cities – it all has such great symbolism for our time. And that’s aside from the fact these women have occupied a central place in the history of documentary photography.

But for traditionalists, No Man’s Land is a long way from the spirit of documentary photography. Of Henner’s work and of all GSV series generally, the ever-outspoken Alan Chin says:

“Google Street Views is a navigational tool, an educational resource, and sure, it can reveal a lot about a place and a scene at a given moment in time. But if you, the artist, are really so interested, then go there and take some pictures yourself. This is about as interesting as cutting out adverts from magazines that have some connection and then presenting your edit as a work of art. Post-modern post-structuralist post-whatever denizens of of the art world and academia love this shit. Which is well and good for the university-press industry. But it has little to do with actual reporting and actual documentary work in the field.”

Well, just last week, I came across Paolo Patrizi documentary photographer that actually took himself to those byways.

For Migration, Patrizi has keenly researched where these women have come from and where, if anywhere, they may be going. From the project statement:

“The phenomenon of foreign women, who line the roadsides of Italy, has become a notorious fact of Italian life. These women work in sub-human conditions; they are sent out without any hope of regularizing their legal status and can be easily transferred into criminal networks. […] For nearly twenty years the women of Benin City, a town in the state of Edo in the south-central part of Nigeria, have been going to Italy to work in the sex trade and every year successful ones have been recruiting younger girls to follow them. […] Most migrant women, including those who end up in the sex industry, have made a clear decision to leave home and take their chances overseas. […] Working abroad is therefore often seen as the best strategy for escaping poverty. The success of many Italos, as these women are called, is evident in Edo. For many girls prostitution in Italy has become an entirely acceptable trade and the legend of their success makes the fight against sex traffickers all the more difficult.”

Patrizi is interviewed on the Dead Porcupine blog and talks about the unchanging situation, the pain experienced by the women, their reactions to him, and the destruction of woodland by authorities in attempts to literally expose the illicit encounters. It’s a must read.

The images in Migrations are inescapably bleak; therein lies their power.

© Paolo Patrizi

© Paolo Patrizi

© Paolo Patrizi

© Paolo Patrizi

Patrizi’s Migration induces a visceral shock; images of the littered make-shift sex-camps turn the stomach. When human fluids are dumped, it is not usual that humans continue to function in and around them. These workstead pits of dirt, tarps and abuse are shrines to the shortcomings of globalisation and the social safety net.

By contrast, Henner’s work allows us to keep a safe distance. He even saves us the trouble of finding these scenes on our own computer screens; we’re detached one step beyond. We are cheap consumers.

Patrizi’s photography with its clear evidence of his boots on the ground don’t allow us to share Henner and Google’s amoral and disinterested eye.

On Henner’s virtual tour, we cruise, at 50mph. We don’t stop, we don’t get out the car and we don’t get too close. We might as well be in another country … which of course we are. Patrizi’s work walks us by hand to the edge of the soiled mattresses and piles of discarded condoms.

Patrizi’s images counter the washed out colours, the flattening effect of wide-angle lenses, and the perpendicular viewpoint of GSV. Instead, they involve texture, depth, legitimate colour, details and different focal points along different sight-lines. In other words, Patrizi’s Migration engages the senses and the basics of human experience. Patrizi’s photographs return us to the shocking fact that that these women are human and not just bit-parts in the difficult social narratives of contemporary society. Works full of threat, fear, flesh and blood.

By comparison, Henner’s screen-grabs are anaemic.

Via del Ponte Pisano, Rome, Italy. © Mishka Henner

© Mishka Henner

Carretera de Gand­a, Oliva, Spain. © Mishka Henner

© Mishka Henner

‘Locked’ by Michal Chelbin (and Thinking About the Conundrum of Portraiture)

August 18, 2011 in Documentary, Fine Art, Opinion | Tags: , , , , , , , | by | 1 comment

Natasha, Women’s Prison, 2009. © Michal Chelbin

For the past three years, Michal Chelbin has made portraits in the prisons of Russia and Ukraine. You can see a selection of the works from her series Locked on the New Yorker Photobooth blog.

Chelbin’s doleful portraits are striking – something different – and, of course, given their subject matter I was compelled to mention them here. However, without any specialist knowledge of the prisons in Russia and Ukraine, I struggled to think of a worthwhile statement to accompany with them. Is it enough for me just to say that work is beautiful and interesting? I don’t think so.

Therefore, this conundrum becomes the focus of this short post.

The way Chelbin describes it, her portraits are the first step on a journey (of undetermined length) to at least attempt to “know” her subjects:

“When I record a scene, my aim is to create a mixture of plain information and riddles, so that not everything is resolved in the image. Who is this person? Why is he dressed like this? What does it mean to be locked up? Is it a human act? Is it fair? Do we punish him with our eyes? Can we guess what a person’s crime is just by looking at his portrait? Is it human to be weak and murderous at the same time? My intentions are to confuse the viewer and to confront him with these questions, which are the same questions with which I myself still struggle.”

It seems to me that this the type of curiosity we should expect of all photographers and their works; it’s partly how we are drawn into the previously unknown.

But the unknown has its dangers. As Fred Ritchin stated:

“Photography too often confirms preconceptions and distances the reader from more nuanced realities. The people in the frame are often depicted as too foreign, too exotic, or simply too different to be easily understood.”

Beautiful photography is easy to come by these days, and so, for me at least, viewing beguiling portraiture becomes an act of enjoying the beauty but then stepping further and using it to get at something deeper. That might involve a dialogue with someone over coffee; it might be to find comparative examples [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]; it might be to read up on the conditions for juvenile prisoners in Russian prisons; it might be to read the photographer’s statement or even contact the photographer directly to seek the missing pieces.

Photographs, and particularly portraits, are often a door unlocked but often in our busy lives we don’t even try the handle.

Perhaps now is a good time to return to some thoughts on what makes a great portrait, here and here.

Mexico’s Drug War, Feminised: Portraits by Katie Orlinsky

August 17, 2011 in Documentary, Press | Tags: , , , | by | 1 comment

Nancy Lilia Núñez, 22, and her daughter, Claudia Marlen, 3. Ms.Núñez is in prison on a kidnapping charge.. © Katie Orlinsky

Katie Orlinsky‘s photographs, including her incredibly powerful portraits from El Cereso, the Ciudad Juárez prison, in Mexico accompany Damien Cave’s New York Times Sunday Review article Mexico’s Drug War, Feminized.

Cave:

Ms. Núñez is only 22. She grew up here, in one of the world’s most crime-infested cities. But was she just hanging out with the wrong crowd, or is she a criminal deserving decades behind bars? With her case and others, this is what Mexico is struggling to figure out. The number of women incarcerated for federal crimes has grown by 400 percent since 2007, pushing the total female prison population past 10,000. No one here seems to know what to make of the spike. Clearly, the rise can partly be attributed to the long reach of drug cartels, which have expanded into organized crime, and drawn in nearly everyone they can, including women.

With 80% of the female inmates at Ciudad Juarez Prison imprisoned for narcotics related crimes, the war on drugs cartels is certainly having results – one wonders though if the results in terms of incarceration are having an effect on lessening the organised crime. A pessimistic position would suggest that these women (and their children) are easily replaced by others to be used by the cartels in identical ways.

One of the most common threads I’ve observed through photographs of female prisoners is the solidarity and sisterhood that exists in female prisons. Whether or not this truly exists is another matter, but in a world where many women are locked up because of men, in institutions usually associated with (violent) men, the notion that the majority of women are victims and only have each other is one worth pondering.

Particularly, Orlinsky’s portraits against a white prison wall are powerful introductions to the personalities of women who’ve lived lives of – and through – severe conflict. More of Orlinksky’s documentary shots can be seen at her website.

FEMALE PRISONERS ELSEWHERE ON PRISON PHOTOGRAPHY

– Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo
– Former Prisoner, Diana Ortiz, Inspires Confidence and Healing in Female Inmates
– Photography Workshop for Romanian Women Prisoners Produces 14,000 Images
– Women’s Prisons in Afghanistan
– Women Behind Bars: Jane Evelyn Atwood’s ‘Too Much Time’
– Women Behind Bars: Vikki Law
– Women Behind Bars: Silja J.A. Talvi
– “Angels Without Wings” Momena Jalil
– Fabio Cuttica: Colombian Prison Beauty Pageant
– “It was like being in front of a mirror.” Melania Comoretto and Women Prisoners
– Neelakshi Vidyalankara
– Patricia Aridjis: The Black Hours / Las Horas Negras
– Prison Nursery, Ohio Reformatory for Women, by Angela Shoemaker

Gaddafi’s Big Head

August 16, 2011 in Institutional, Photography: Non-Prison, Visual Feeds | Tags: , , , , , | by | 1 comment

Late last night, I heard a report by a BBC World Service journalist from Tripoli. Escorted by a government liaison officer, the journo only met members of the public who were fervent Gaddafi supporters (one of Gaddafi’s information officers was captured by rebels last week and estimated 70% of people in Tripoli supported Gaddafi.)

During the report, he spoke with men piecing together a huge “photo” of Gaddafi in Green Square. I had heard nothing of this so this morning jumped on my computer to see for myself.

If it weren’t for the BBC report, I may have considered the above images an elaborate hoax – a) because I’d not heard of this month-old photo-stunt, and b) because it just seems so bonkers.

The images are screengrabs from Libyan TV made Sate Hamza ساطع, whose Twitter profile reads, “Syrian-Canadian dermatopathologist practicing in Winnipeg. Lived in the US. Enjoy comedy, world music & multimedia. Follow global news & current affairs. Vegan.” He blogs here.

Sate, whose Twitter handle is sate3 posted the screengrabs to TwitPic on 24th July with the message, “Giant photo of Gaddafi in Green Square in Tripoli unveiled yesterday (July 22, 2011), on Libyan TV. #Libya”

So, I ask for a bit of feedback. Had anyone else heard of this massive photograph? If so, can you help me with some more resources. If not, why not? How does this compare to other examples from history of nationalistic/cult of the personality shows of strength?

UPDATE: Two images from Reuters here and here.

Book Review: ‘Grace Before Dying’ by Lori Waselchuk

August 15, 2011 in Documentary | Tags: , , | by | 4 comments

Grace Before Dying by Lori Waselchuk is a rare thing. It is a prison photography project that holds a mirror up to only acts of compassion and dignity. The love – in the form of palliative care – shared among incarcerated men at Louisiana State Penitentiary (known commonly as Angola) is not as rare as we might think among America’s imprisoned classes.

But, the hospice at Angola may be as rare as it seems.

Angola is not like other prisons. Some of the harshest State sentencing laws in the country mean that 85% of prisoners will never be released from the penitentiary. Angola more than most prisons has a burden of responsibility to its aging and dying lifers. The end-of-life care is given by a team of trained medical professionals and inmate-volunteers.

Waselchuk describes the preciousness of touch:

And then something happened. The carpenters eager to demonstrate their love for their friend, started to take over the care-giving tasks. Massaging Richard’s swollen wrist, Randolph explained that the rubbing helped circulate his blood and reduced the swelling. Very timidly, Joseph picked up the other arm, and Carlo began to rub Richards ankles.

The physical contact between these men was new territory. For Richard, this moment seemed beyond description … it seemed to me that he felt overwhelmed by it. It was profound moment of grace, during which these men allowed themselves to break physical boundaries and accept physical expressions of friendship.

I witnessed how the Angola prison hospice team sparked a movement of empathy that not only spread throughout the prison population, but also influenced the prison’s security and medical staff.

We as a society have a choice to make if we think prisons are suitable environments for the infirm and the dying to see out their days. The prisoners have their own decisions to make as to how they interact while we mull those decisions. And they act daily.

But the circumstances of daily routines are shaped by past events.

The frighteningly thorough foreword by Lawrence N. Powell describes the unrest, corruption and social violence both inside and outside Louisiana prison walls through history. In the 19th century, Major Samuel L. James, with the state governor “in his pocket”, ran Angola for profit, “When James died in 1894, he was worth a cool $2.3 million, or nearly $60 million in modern day equivalents.”

The early 20th century in Angola was brutal. In 1933 alone, 1,547 floggings with hickory sticks or leather bats were administered. A grand total 23,889 blows. By 1941 the floggings-per-year had climbed to over 10,000. Powell asks, “Who was doing the counting?”

Throughout the 60s and early 70s, conditions went form bad to worse. The early 70s “represented a nadir in modern Angola history. Inmate cliques and gangs tore the place apart. There was a raft of serious knife wounds and stabbing deaths.”

In 1975, a federal judge and magistrate in Louisiana declared the states confinement “cruel and unusual”. Even then political games were played. Funds for improving the fabric of Louisiana’s prison were appropriated for an extension on the LSU stadium. Then governor, David Treen attempted to legally sanction double-dunking as a solution to overcrowding; the courts rejected his proposal as ludicrous.

The big prison boom came in the 90s when former governor Edwin Edwards convinced the legislature, while incarcerated himself, to float bond issues to pay for prison expansion and decentralization. It was the biggest prison boom Louisiana ever witnessed.

Waselchuk’s photography is an act of witness but it does not ensure the ongoing operations of this sanctuary of humanity. The hospice is partly supported by the fundraising efforts of a cadre of prisoner-quilt-makers. Full colour reproductions of the quilts have their place in Grace Before Dying.

Just as I praised Edmund Clark for giving over a large portion of his book If The Lights Go Out to the letters of Guantanamo detainee Omar Deghayes, so too I praise Waselchuk for giving pages of the book over to the quilt-makers. The auction of these quilts allows volunteers to buy coffee machines, radios and books for the isolation cells now serving as hospice rooms. Purchased items such as sweatpants, specialty foods and slippers provide the same small comforts we’d all hope for at our hour.

A quilt covers every casket on its way to the grave.

The prison atmosphere weighs heavy on anyone inside. Add to that, the gravity of death and burial, one might think Waselchuk’s book is hard to love, but as she asserts, ” This project is not about death. It is about life, its limits, and the choices made within those limits.”

Her photographs draw out the exhaustion, discipline and friendship of the volunteers, the physical pains and emotional toil of the dying and the persistent community from incarcerated and non-incarcerated persons working in the hospice. Grimaces are balanced by grins and past indiscretions are obliterated by present duty … some might call it heroism.

As close as we can get try to understand the tumult of emotions within those locked into a cycle of friendship and loss in a prison in the floodplains of Louisiana, these photos are the starting point.

__________________________________________________________

Grace Before Dying. Umbrage Books, Hardcover / $39.95 USD, 11″ x 8.5″ / 120 pages / 47 B&W photographs, June 2011, ISBN: 978-1-884167-22-5

View the Grace Before Dying website. You can see large online images at the Critical Mass website.

The Grace Before Dying exhibition is currently on tour. Lori is presently in Boise, Idaho and the show will continue to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., where Lori will speak on September 9th.

BIOGRAPHY

Lori Waselchuk is a documentary photographer whose photographs have appeared in magazines and  newspapers worldwide, including Newsweek, LIFE, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times.  She has reproduced photographs for several international aid organizations including CARE, the  UN World Food Program, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the Vaccine Fund. She is a recipient of the Aaron Siskind Foundation’s 2009 Individual Photographer Fellowship, a 2008 Distribution Grant from the Documentary Photography Project of the Open Society Institute, the 2007 PhotoNOLA Review Prize, and the 2004 Southern African Gender and Media Award for Photojournalism. Waselchuk was also a nominee for the 2009 Santa Fe Prize for Photography, a finalist in the 2008 Aperture West Book Prize, and a finalist in the 2006 and 2008 Critical Mass Review.

‘Execution Chambers’ by Emily Kinni

August 12, 2011 in Fine Art | Tags: , , , | by | 2 comments

Church within West Virginia Penitentiary, 2011

Emily Kinni, recent recipient of a Tierney Fellowship, has an intriguing project named Where Death Dies for which she has photographed former execution sites and decommissioned execution chambers, electric chair and death apparatus.

New Jersey State Prison was the site of executions until the Garden State outlawed the death penalty in 2007, and West Virginia Penitentiary ceased as the site of state executions in 1959.

West Virginia Penitentiary itself was decommissioned in 1986 and has since become a tourist destination; on view is ‘Old Sparky‘, the prison’s once-used electric chair. Kinni photographed a basketball court where the execution chamber used to be sited.

This is a young project and potentially still in the making. Having being named a Tierney Fellow though, it is likely Kinni will move away from this subject matter. The primary goal of the Tierney Fellowship is:

“to find tomorrow’s distinguished artists and leaders in the world of photography and assist them in overcoming the challenges that a photographer faces at the beginning of his or her career. […] At the end of the one-year grant period, recipients are expected to present a new body of work.”

We’ll keep our eyes peeled.

As a footnote, comparable projects on death chambers would be Lucinda Devlin’s Omega Suites and Mark Jenkinson’s Death Row.

Thanks to Hester for the tip off. View the other 2011 Tierney Fellows here.

EMAIL

prisonphotography [at] gmail [dot] com

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