Essay & Bibliography | Prison Obscura
▻http://exhibits.haverford.edu/prisonobscura/essay
The works in Prison Obscura direct audiences toward creativity and activism, calling for a responsible consumption of images. While the artists in the exhibit co-create and capture experiences, their works press on a more conventional documentary tradition so powerfully shaped by the efforts of Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis. In their wake great documentarians such as Danny Lyon, Bruce Jackson, and Ethan Hoffman plugged images of prisons into the discourses of race and class inequality during the sixties and seventies. In the past few decades, however, such documentary photography has come under scrutiny for commodifying tragedy and hardship; for parachuting into grave situations and leaving just as quickly; and for being the reserve of Western photographers and white, male patriarchy. The debate is of course more nuanced, but the foundational criticism is that a constant flow of silver gelatin prints serves to codify catastrophe as happening elsewhere, anesthetizing the viewer to the individuality of human suffering.
Can Photos of Prisons Actually Improve the Lives of Prisoners?
▻https://medium.com/@brookpete/can-photos-of-prisons-improve-the-lives-of-prisoners-9e978092c58e
“In early 2015, Prison Obscura a photography exhibition about imagery emergent from the American prison industrial complex went on show at Parsons The New School of Design, New York (Feb 5th—Apr 17)
Proliferation - Paul Rucker - US Prisons
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ySH-FgMljYo
Commissioned by Haverford College in 2013, and debuting Jan—Mar 2014, Prison Obscura continues to travel. On the occasion of its showing in New York, I republish my catalogue essay. It originally appeared here.”
#photographie #prisons #usa #essais
