Richard Ross: Isolated
Richard Ross: Isolated
SBCC Atkinson Gallery
September 25-December 4, 2015
80 days, three weeks, 72 hours, 800 days...These are the responses of kids when asked how long they were kept in isolation. Iso, administrative seg, time-out, disciplinary confinement. All euphemisms for inhumane treatment of children, essentially locked in closets for extended periods of damaging, punishing time. — Richard Ross
The Isolated exhibit is the most recent component of Richard Ross’ ten-year effort to document the juvenile justice system in the United States. In this show, Ross explicitly critiques the pervasive use of solitary confinement with a new set of photographs as well as audio, which he employs here for the first time. Via the combination of imagery and sound, Ross is an insistent and compelling agitator for reform, rather than a neutral witness of the status quo. His message is clear: END SOLITARY.
At the center of the gallery is a minimalist facsimile of a typical isolation unit: a small windowless cube equipped with a bare mattress and a speaker playing recordings of interviews with the numerous young people, aged 10-18, Ross has visited in correctional facilities across the country. By editing his questions out of the tracks, Ross offers agency to each incarcerated child via their self-described experience. Alone in the constricted space and hearing the composite of their stories on an endless loop, the listener must simultaneously confront their unique traumas and the undeniably similar narratives of violence, hunger, drug abuse, mental illness, and neglect.
Like Ross’ previous work about reformatories, the photographs in the Isolated exhibit are loosely divided into two categories: those depicting the spaces of isolation themselves, and those depicting the children confined in those spaces. In so doing, Ross makes the abstract institution of imprisonment tangible while underscoring the de-humanizing intent of what he calls “the architecture of authority.” Then, by focusing on individual kids and giving them voice, he upends the systemic effort to hold them apart from society and strip them of their self-identities.
In Ross’ stark spatial investigation, picture after picture features what appears to be the same bleak cell—the grey, featureless room made more uniform and visually numbing through compositional repetition. Closer inspection reveals that the photographs are actually of the nearly identical segregation units reproduced in prisons across America with barely detectable differences in paint tone, functional features (light, drain, vent), and construction material. Even the sole, brightly colored cell offers no respite from the conformity. As they are designed to be, these spaces feel unbearably tight. With these images, Ross profoundly illustrates the universal consistency with which this punitive architecture is employed.
Despite, or because of, blurring faces to protect their identities, Ross’ powerful portraits simultaneously highlight the singularity of each child while making the unmistakable assertion that these could be any children, our children, or even ourselves. In these images, the light—both natural and fluorescent—hints at the space beyond the confines of the cell and the possibility of another reality. Along the edge of one photograph a backlit girl in a vivid orange jumpsuit balances precariously on her bed frame, about to take flight like a modern day Icarus. In a long hallway, midway to another photograph’s vanishing point, a girl stands still and handcuffed, looking up at a diffused light, ready to be transported both literally and metaphorically. In many, however, the children appear resigned, bodies slouched and slumped.
Dirt, blood, scratches on the concrete—Ross also records the isolated youths’ marks of time and self-expression made in and on their oppressively generic cells. These marks accentuate the essential conflict between the institution, actualized by the space, and the young human beings that it attempts to restrain. In this exhibit, and with these images in particular, Ross successfully conveys both a visceral understanding of the inherent and inevitable damage caused by solitary confinement and the humanity of his subjects.
Sarah Cunningham
Atkinson Gallery Director, SBCC
September 2015
The Isolated exhibit is the most recent component of Richard Ross’ ten-year effort to document the juvenile justice system in the United States. In this show, Ross explicitly critiques the pervasive use of solitary confinement with a new set of photographs as well as audio, which he employs here for the first time. Via the combination of imagery and sound, Ross is an insistent and compelling agitator for reform, rather than a neutral witness of the status quo. His message is clear: END SOLITARY.
At the center of the gallery is a minimalist facsimile of a typical isolation unit: a small windowless cube equipped with a bare mattress and a speaker playing recordings of interviews with the numerous young people, aged 10-18, Ross has visited in correctional facilities across the country. By editing his questions out of the tracks, Ross offers agency to each incarcerated child via their self-described experience. Alone in the constricted space and hearing the composite of their stories on an endless loop, the listener must simultaneously confront their unique traumas and the undeniably similar narratives of violence, hunger, drug abuse, mental illness, and neglect.
Like Ross’ previous work about reformatories, the photographs in the Isolated exhibit are loosely divided into two categories: those depicting the spaces of isolation themselves, and those depicting the children confined in those spaces. In so doing, Ross makes the abstract institution of imprisonment tangible while underscoring the de-humanizing intent of what he calls “the architecture of authority.” Then, by focusing on individual kids and giving them voice, he upends the systemic effort to hold them apart from society and strip them of their self-identities.
In Ross’ stark spatial investigation, picture after picture features what appears to be the same bleak cell—the grey, featureless room made more uniform and visually numbing through compositional repetition. Closer inspection reveals that the photographs are actually of the nearly identical segregation units reproduced in prisons across America with barely detectable differences in paint tone, functional features (light, drain, vent), and construction material. Even the sole, brightly colored cell offers no respite from the conformity. As they are designed to be, these spaces feel unbearably tight. With these images, Ross profoundly illustrates the universal consistency with which this punitive architecture is employed.
Despite, or because of, blurring faces to protect their identities, Ross’ powerful portraits simultaneously highlight the singularity of each child while making the unmistakable assertion that these could be any children, our children, or even ourselves. In these images, the light—both natural and fluorescent—hints at the space beyond the confines of the cell and the possibility of another reality. Along the edge of one photograph a backlit girl in a vivid orange jumpsuit balances precariously on her bed frame, about to take flight like a modern day Icarus. In a long hallway, midway to another photograph’s vanishing point, a girl stands still and handcuffed, looking up at a diffused light, ready to be transported both literally and metaphorically. In many, however, the children appear resigned, bodies slouched and slumped.
Dirt, blood, scratches on the concrete—Ross also records the isolated youths’ marks of time and self-expression made in and on their oppressively generic cells. These marks accentuate the essential conflict between the institution, actualized by the space, and the young human beings that it attempts to restrain. In this exhibit, and with these images in particular, Ross successfully conveys both a visceral understanding of the inherent and inevitable damage caused by solitary confinement and the humanity of his subjects.
Sarah Cunningham
Atkinson Gallery Director, SBCC
September 2015
Exhibition Catalog
| isolated_by_richard_ross_catalog_web.pdf |
