ART CITIES:N.York-The Writing on the Wall
The traveling installation “The Writing on the Wall” is composed of essays, poems, letters, stories, diagrams, and notes written by individuals in prison around the world, layered on acrylic panels, imitating the walls of a prison. The installation is a collaboration between Hank Willis Thomas and Dr. Baz Dreisinger with Openbox, and designed by MASS Design Group.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: High Line Art Archive
By emulating a prison cell, the presentation of “The Writing on the Wall” recreates these largely unseen spaces in a public sphere. The installation’s design references the palimpsest-like writing on the walls of prison cells and layers these onto opaque and transparent acrylic panels arranged in modules. The arrangement of the installation is based on measurements of cell blocks so that visitors can be fully immersed in the written and typed words of the incarcerated. The writings were accrued, with the authors’ permission, by Dr. Dreisinger during her years teaching in US and international prisons. As a presentation of the crisis of global criminal justice systems, these letters humanize the writers by visually conveying the narratives, thoughts, and emotions of the people behind bars. The installation of “The Writing on the Wall” on the High Line is presented as the second Joint Art Initiative of the High Line Network. The Network is a group of urban reuse projects that share experiences and ideas about the environmental, economic, cultural, and social impact of transforming underutilized infrastructure into new public landscapes. The project was conceived by professor Dr. Baz Dreisinger and her students at John Jay College of Criminal Justice with conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas as an effort to spread awareness and galvanize grassroots efforts toward prison reimagining and justice reform. Dr. Dreisinger is the founder of the “Prison-to-College Pipeline” program at John Jay College, and the founder and executive director of the “Incarceration Nations Network”. Founded in 2018, the “Incarceration Nations Network” is a global network that fosters and elevates innovative justice work worldwide. Dr. Dreisinger is also the author of the book “Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World” and a 2018 Global Fulbright Scholar. Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist living and working in New York City. His work focuses on themes related to perspective identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. He often incorporates recognizable icons into his work, many from well-known advertising and branding campaigns. On advertising, in an interview with Time, Thomas said, “Part of advertising’s success is based on its ability to reinforce generalizations developed around race, gender and ethnicity which are generally false, but [these generalizations] can sometimes be entertaining, sometimes true, and sometimes horrifying”. After the robbery and murder of his cousin, Songha Thomas Willis in 2000, Hank became known for “B®anded” a series of photographs, and “Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968-2008”, a body of work created from appropriating advertising images. He was thinking about the root of black-on-black violence in the US.
Info: High Line Park, 14th Street New York, Duration 31/10-10/11/19, Days & Hours: Daily 7:00-22:00, www.thehighline.org
