I made this installation as a kind of time capsule of my experience growing up in Massachusetts. Emphasizing repeating circular patterns, I point to labor patterns, patterns of behavior and the cyclical nature of time. Patterns of labor are manifest in the braided rugs made by anonymous women to avoid going bat shit crazy. The rug on the floor has a blood red center. The dress is made from braided rugs likely made from worn dresses. The wallpaper is a repeat pattern of the aerial view of the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum security in Massachusetts. Mirrors throughout reference the panopticon, a surveillance system that encourages self regulation. Finally, the detail of the dandelion necklace has both leaf dagger and blossom, suggesting a precarious balance between entrapment and escape.
At first glance it’s a cozy domestic scene from a grandmotherly living room, but closer inspection of the wallpaper and upholstery reveals barbed wire and images of prisons—in this case of the Adult Correctional Institute in Rhode Island. The door of the circular bird cage echos the shape of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a late 18th century prison plan that was circular and had a central watchtower. The idea behind Bentham’s plan was prisoners would feel they were always being watched and would begin to self surveil. Bentham’s design impacted the design of schools, hospitals and prisons and it is with us now in the omnipresence of surveillance cameras and in internet surveillance and tracking. The dueling birds in the light shade, the toile wallpaper and chair reveal power structures present in everyday life and suggest that even in domestic space feelings of unease and entrapment are ever-present patterns of behavior.
This wallpaper was adapted from a fragment of a19th century toile pattern that I found on Ebay. I replaced the buildings in the original with images of Howard Prison, now known as the Adult Correctional Institution in Cranston, RI. Barbed wire festoons, barred windows and weapons were also drawn into the original pattern. Howard Prison was built in the 19th century, a period of prison reform and expansion, as well as a period of expanding material wealth for the growing middle class. Wallpaper was a sign of this wealth, and it was used extensively in home decoration. Toile and other panoramic papers gave viewers a sense of an expansive tranquility. This altered toile highlights the cost of that tranquility, pointing to our current culture of incarceration and referencing the philosopher Jeremy Benthem’s idea of the panopticon as a surveillance device, an all-seeing eye that instills behavior control through paranoia.
Printer: Beth Brandon, Photo Courtesy The RISD Museum
William Morris' "Sweet Briar"pattern is altered with Lorton Penitentiary, where the Silent Sentinels, the women who fought for our right to vote, were incarcerated. The Penitentiary was recently made into apartments, called "Liberty at Lorton."
William Morris' "Sweet Briar"pattern is altered with Lorton Penitentiary, where the Silent Sentinels, the women who fought for our right to vote, were incarcerated. The Penitentiary was recently made into apartments, called "Liberty at Lorton."
A series of wallpapers that amend historic wallpapers with images of US maximum security prisons. Based on a Zuber design, I replaced the original structures with images of Waupun Prison, a 19th century maximum security prison in Wisconsin. I adapted the trellis with barbed wire and used gunpowder in printing the last two layers.
Printer: Beth Brandon