Worldwide, prisons are ʻhomeʼ to more than 9 million people, and their numbers will only increase over the coming decades. But what do our various societies seek to accomplish by locking up such massive numbers of offenders?
Cruel and Unusual (Noorderlicht Photo Gallery) presents revealing, and quite unexpected photography dealing with life behind bars. For this exhibition the guest curators Hester Keijser and Pete Brook have brought together work by eleven women photographers, most of which has never before been shown in Europe. As background for the exhibition Noorderlicht is publishing a newspaper with articles, interviews and extra photo material.
Cruel and Unusual looks at how the prison system is presented in images, and how these images are created, distributed and consumed. How do citizens, tax payers and empathetic humans come to an understanding of life in prisons on the basis of the information, politicized or not, which they receive?
Cruel and Unusual Punishment takes a startling and sometimes disconcerting look behind various prison walls around the world. Each photographer confronts her viewers in her own way with the question of how current practices of mass incarceration of offenders reflects our changing sense of decency and justice.
The title of the exhibition refers to the English Bill of Rights from 1689 and the Eighth Amendment to the America constitution, which stipulates that citizens must not be subject to ʻcruel and unusual punishmentʼ. But when is punishment cruel and unusual?
The photographers selected, Araminta de Clermont, Amy Elkins, Alyse Emdur, Christiane Feser, Brenda-Ann Kenneally, Jane Lindsay, Deborah Luster, Nathalie Mohadjer, Yana Payusova, Lizzie
Sadin and Lori Waselchuk
Cruel and Unusual
Until April 1, 2012
Noorderlicht Photo Gallery
Akerkhof 12,
9711 Groningen
Netherlands
Open Wed – Sun, noon to 6:00 p.m.
Admission free
