May 15, 2002 - Artist Statement
Lorton Prison Project
May 15, 2002 - Artist Statement
But the body is also directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs.
(Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish. 1977. pp. 25-26)
Lorton Prison is about to be demolished. Throughout the past year, prisoners from this District of Columbia Correctional Facility in Northern Virginia have been transferred to the Midwest.
During several recent photographic visits to the Prison, I became intrigued with graffiti written in the Medium Security Adjustment Unit. Hopelessness in the form of anger, rage, and despair was evident in drawings and writings left behind in the darkened cells. The messages spoke to me of isolation, rejection, and invisibility. Perhaps the silent walls of their cells were the only witnesses to this anguish.
My installation, located within the second and third floor corridors of the Fine Arts Building, consists of two parts:
The Lorton property, acquired by the D.C. Government between 1910 and 1953, has been sold to a private developer and will now be commercialized. The buildings and bodies of the prison and prisoners at Lorton, Virginia, could not compete productively with a proposed 18-hole golf course, townhouses, and other economically-profitable industrial development.
Read the Review by Jennifer Leigh Gibson
http://umbcinsightsweekly.wordpress.com/2002/11/14/always-being-watched-but-never-really-seen/
(Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish. 1977. pp. 25-26)
Lorton Prison is about to be demolished. Throughout the past year, prisoners from this District of Columbia Correctional Facility in Northern Virginia have been transferred to the Midwest.
During several recent photographic visits to the Prison, I became intrigued with graffiti written in the Medium Security Adjustment Unit. Hopelessness in the form of anger, rage, and despair was evident in drawings and writings left behind in the darkened cells. The messages spoke to me of isolation, rejection, and invisibility. Perhaps the silent walls of their cells were the only witnesses to this anguish.
My installation, located within the second and third floor corridors of the Fine Arts Building, consists of two parts:
- Images of graffiti representing the embodiment of former inmates, and
- Images of a prison cell block devoid of inmates.
The Lorton property, acquired by the D.C. Government between 1910 and 1953, has been sold to a private developer and will now be commercialized. The buildings and bodies of the prison and prisoners at Lorton, Virginia, could not compete productively with a proposed 18-hole golf course, townhouses, and other economically-profitable industrial development.
Read the Review by Jennifer Leigh Gibson
http://umbcinsightsweekly.wordpress.com/2002/11/14/always-being-watched-but-never-really-seen/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)