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How can images tell the story of mass incarceration when the imprisoned don’t have control over their own representation? This is the question Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood asks as editor of the latest Aperture (Spring 2018).
“Prison Nation” can be ordered online today and hits the news-stands next week. Devoted to prison imagery and discussion of mass incarceration, the issue presents a slew of works across contrasting genres — landmark documentary by Bruce Jackson, Joseph Rodriguez and Keith Calhoun & Chandra McCormick; luscious and uncanny portraits by Jack Lueders-Booth, Deborah Luster and Jamel Shabazz; insider images from Nigel Poor, Lorenzo Steele, Jr. and Jesse Krimes; and contemporary works by Sable Elyse Smith, Emily Kinni, Zora Murff, Lucas Foglia and Stephen Tourlentes.
Equally exciting is the banger roster of thinkers contributing essays, intros and conversations — including Mabel O. Wilson, Shawn Michelle Smith, Christie Thompson, Jordan Kisner, Zachary Lazar, Rebecca Bengal, Brian Wallis, Jessica Lynne, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Ruby Tapia, Zarinah Shabazz, Brian Stevenson, Sarah Lewis, Hank Willis Thomas and Virginia Grise.
I have an essay ‘Prison Index’ included which looks back on almost a decade of this Prison Photography website–how it began, what it has done and what it has become. I highlight a dozen-or-so photographers’ works that are not represented by features in the issue itself. I wonder how PP functions as an archive and what role it serves for public memory and knowledge.
MATCHING QUALITY CONTENT WITH QUALITY DESIGN
I’ve known for years that Prison Photography requires a design overhaul. This past week, I’ve moved forward with plans for that. It goes without saying that the almost-daily blogging routine of 2008 with which Prison Photography began has morphed into a slower publishing schedule. There’s a plethora of great material on this website but a lot of it is buried in the blog-scroll format. My intention is to redesign PP as more of an “occasionally-updated archive” whereby the insightful interviews from years past are drawn up to the surface.
It’s time to make this *database* of research more legible and searchable. Clearly, as this Aperture issue demonstrates, the niche genre of prison photographs is vast and it demands a more user-friendly interface for this website. I’m proud to be included in “Prison Nation” but know it’s a timely prod to develop Prison Photography’s design and serve the still-crucial discussions.
Get your copy of Aperture, Issue 230 “Prison Nation” here.
Thanks to the staff at Aperture, especially Brendan Wattenberg and Michael Famighetti for ushering and editing the piece through.
I wrote about Lucas Foglia’s third and most recent photobook Human Nature for Photo District News: ‘Human Nature’ Finds New Ways To Understand Our Impact On The Environment
To quote:
Human Nature (Nazraeli) journeys from Nevada ranch lands to constructed paradises in Singapore, from a farm in a New York City jail to a research station on an Alaska glacier. Foglia not only documents ice floes, clear-cut forests, green urbanism and other common climate change subjects, he meditates on what nature has become and how we interact emotionally, or not, with our planet.
He also pulls back the veil on the work of earth scientists. Having resolved that most places on earth had been visited, documented and altered, Foglia decided to demystify the labor behind our understanding of the planet. “I started photographing scientists who measured the air. Amidst all of the news stories and political arguments about climate change, most people don’t know what the process of the science looks like,” he says.
Foglia photographed field researchers at the Guyana Forestry Commission, the Juneau Icefield Research Program, the NOAA Observatories and USDA Agricultural Research Stations. The scientists granted Foglia free access because, he says, they recognized that he was intent, like they are, on describing the world fairly. “We shared a common cause,” he says. […] The Trump administration has proposed cutting NOAA’s budget by 17 percent, including a 26 percent cut to research. “Most of the scientists I photographed are at risk of losing funding,” Foglia notes.
All images: Lucas Foglia. (Top to bottom): 1. Kate in an EEG Study of Cognition in the Wild, Strayer Lab, University of Utah. 2. Esme Swimming, Parkroyal on Pickering, Singapore. 3. Lava Boat Tour, Hawai‘i shows brand new land created by lava pouring into the ocean. 4. Air Sampling, Mauna Loa Observatory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Hawai‘i. 5. New crop varieties are grown and tested in the Geneva Greenhouses at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. The USDA’s national and regional seed banks store hundreds of thousands of plant varieties, and crop scientists race to create a climate-change-resilient agriculture. As droughts, extreme rainstorms, and other erratic weather patterns intensify, farmers need crops that can cope with such stresses. 6. Ice to Protect Orange Trees from the Cold, California. 7. Evan sleeps at Camp Eighteen, overlooking the Vaughan Lewis Icefall. One of the greatest non-polar concentrations of glaciers in the world, the Juneau Icefield spans 90 miles of southeast Alaska. 8. Icebergs float away from the Gilkey Glacier in Alaska. 9. Kenzie inside a Melting Glacier, Juneau Icefield Research Program, Alaska. 10. Honey bees trail water across a rooftop after rain in Portland, Oregon.
Prison Photography 