Holding Pattern

2020

In this site-specific installation, I utilize countless catalog images of prison uniforms to examine the dizzying effects of binge incarceration in a nation that on any given day holds over two million people in state, federal and private prisons while generating over $1 billion annually selling products and services created behind bars.

Using prison uniforms originally designed to classify, flatten and strip individuality, ironically often made through prison labor programs, I created intricate patterns and text pieces that wallpaper the dimensions of the average prison cell and animations that move in calculated synchronicity on transparent televisions.  Through these processes, I explore the ways in which carceral spaces produce what Foucault termed ‘docile bodies’ through twenty-four hour control and surveillance over the uniformed men, women and children entering these systems.