Window Into Solitary
Window Into Solitary is a documentary storytelling project by four photographers focusing on 17 formerly incarcerated people from across the U.S. who have spent extensive amounts of time in solitary confinement. In addition to powerful photographic images, the project includes written testimony by the participants about their experiences in solitary and their thoughts about its widespread use across the U.S. carceral system.
The project was conceived with the goal to educate and activate the public about the profound impact and harrowing consequences of the widespread use of solitary confinement in American prisons. The project is in conjunction with the publication of Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement, a new book by Christopher Blackwell, Prof. Deborah Zalesne, Kwaneta Harris, and Dr. Terry Kupers exposing the cruel and unusual punishment experienced by close to 125,000 of our fellow citizens each day inside prisons across America.
Produced by
Look2Justice
Social Documentary Network
Production team
Christopher Blackwell, Producer
Glenn Ruga, Creative Director
Deborah Zalesne, Writer and Editor
Photographers
Lori Waselchuk, Philadelphia
Brian Branch-Price, New York
Deborah Espinosa, Seattle
Brian Frank, San Francisco
All images are copyright by the photographers. Any reproduction of the images without permission by photographers is prohibited.
Gallery exhibition
The core of the project is a gallery exhibition of all 17 images printed directly on metal at 24” x 21.5” with the text. The first showing is at the Mutual Arts Collective in Pikes Place Market in Seattle opening the week of October 6 and running through the end of the year. We have commitments from other galleries in the Pacific Northwest in the spring.
We are seeking other venues for this exhibit. Please contact us if you want more information about hosting the exhibit.
Click here to view all images and text.
Bus tour version of exhibit
Left: Window Into Solitary on display at first bus tour stop in Berkeley on September 4. Right: Debbie Zalesne, co-author of Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement, with Richard “Razor” Johnson, one of the 17 subjects featured in the exhibit.
In conjunction with the release of the book Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement, the Unlock the Box Campaign and Look2Justice are producing the Journey to Justice bus tour. The bus is a mobile, interactive museum designed to bring awareness to the crisis of solitary confinement in our nation's incarceration system. The tour began in Berkeley, CA on September 4 and will end in Washington, DC on October 30-31. See website for all 18 stops along the way, and dates.
SDN created a pop-up version of the exhibition for the bus tour. These are four two-sided vinyl banner stands making for easy assembly for the 18 locations of the tour:
Special Solitary Confinement Issue of ZEKE Magazine
This summer, SDN produced a special issue of ZEKE magazine designed around the photographs in the Windows Into Solitary exhibition.
Other content in the issue includes:
Behind the Walls: A Woman’s Perspective on Solitary Confinement
By Kwaneta Harris
In the Hole: Five incarcerated men on the minute-by-minute experience of solitary confinement
By Christopher Blackwell, Aaron Edward Olson, Antoine Davis, Raymond Williams, and Jonathan Kirkpatrick
Click here to view the Solitary Confinement Issue of ZEKE.
