Black Is the Day, Black Is the Night

February 7, 2014 6:46 AM

Artist Amy Elkinsbegan corresponding in 2009 with prisoners on death row in California. Of the seven men with whom Elkins made contact in June 2009, she remains in touch with only one, Freddy, who has been held in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay since 1995, when he was 16 years of age. Freddy has been incarcerated since he was 13. Parting Words is "a visual archive of the 500+ prisoners to date executed in the state of Texas."
posted by roomthreeseventeen (5 comments total)

I'm generally not wild about projects that put such a singular focus on capital prisoners and capital punishment, as they tend to obscure the quotidian human destruction inherent to non-capital incarceration, but some of these images are just devastating. I especially like her use of the temporal disruption of incarceration in constructing blurred images by basing image quality on the number of years inside. Great stuff.
posted by still bill at 8:20 AM on February 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Freddy, who has been held in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay since 1995, when he was 16 years of age.

Freddy and I are the same age.

I cannot imagine how broken he must be by now after 19 years (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) in solitary.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:14 AM on February 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I always like to mention Oklahoma, because I feel they don't get quite enough attention for having the highest execution rate per-capita.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:18 AM on February 7, 2014

Prison Guard Union Calls on Texas to Curtail Solitary Confinement on Death Row
posted by mokin at 11:56 AM on February 7, 2014

How can it possibly be considered humane to leave a human being in solitary confinement for 19 years?
posted by gucci mane at 10:48 PM on February 7, 2014