Rikers Island Battered Women Section, Survivors.
It all started in 2009, when I met Donna Ferrato, internationally respected documentary photographer, who fell in love with my project on prisons in Tuscany, and gave me the amazing opportunity to continue my project about prisons in NYC.
I was given access to Rikers Island through the Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) program—the founding program of STEPS to End Family Violence, which is a unique program, not only in New York City, but in the United States. According to the statistics provided by the correctional association of New York, more than 90% of incarcerated have suffered physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes. For 25 years, ATI has sought to address the needs of domestic violence survivors who are charged with crimes related to the abuse they have experienced. The program provides domestic violence and trauma education and support services at Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers.
Rikers is the biggest, and probably most famous, jail in the United States. It is built on an island between the Bronx and Queens, and consists of 18 different buildings that hold thousands of prisoners. The Bronx prisoners are kept in a boat on the river that separates Queens from the Bronx.
I arrived at the Battered Women section for the first time in 2009. I quickly learned that prisoners are not allowed to own mirrors, as a mirror is considered a weapon. Some of these incarcerated women haven’t seen their faces in years. In fact, some of them couldn’t even recognize themselves in the photographs I showed them. The most beautiful aspect of this project for me is the fact that, with my pictures, I can offer these women a mirror.
Prisoners at Rikers are not permitted to keep pictures of themselves, for fear that they may use them to create fake IDs. Since I can’t leave the photos with the women in the prison, I give the photos to their families instead. Every time I meet with their families, I am reminded how precious a picture can be.
Nobody has photographed this section of Rikers before. I feel a sense of honor and responsibility for these prisoners.
Clara Vannucci was born and raised in Florence, Italy in 1985. She has always been interested in photography, since she was very young. After a degree in graphic design, at the University of Architecture of Florence, she decided to move to New York City. Her most important project is about Theatre in prison in Tuscany, with her camera she has begun to show how the method of acting in prison can be a useful tool to changing the way the criminal mind works. She started to take pictures in prisons like Rikers Island, NYC, to continue her project about Crime and Redemption. Her interests are mostly based on the diversity of people and their cultures. And she finds in Photography the best way to show the world . For this reason she chooses tough subjects and issues and tells her stories traveling all around the world. From Florence, where she documented the issue of political Refugees, to countries like Madagascar, Mali, Etiopia, Cameroon and most recently, in Yemen, documenting the problem of Water and the Shark Finning. She works for Repubblica, L’Espresso, Touring Club, Private, La stampa, Class, Choc Magazine, The New York Times, The New York Times Lens. She now lives between NYC and Italy. In NYC she is working as assistant to photojournalist. Donna Ferrato
