The Visual Culture and the Carceral State section presents the research reports of the Critical Carceral Visualities research team and from other DCC projects that intersect with this theme. The publications in this section investigate the role of visual culture in shaping how we see–or do not see–the carceral state, its subjects, and the complexities of its violence. These resources support abolitionist visual pedagogies–ways of interpreting images that highlight the systemic injustices of punishment, imprisonment, and the widespread mechanisms of social control of which they are a part. Ultimately, we hope to offer and critically frame an inventory of artifacts and tools to benefit the work of scholars, researchers, and activists seeking to complicate and disrupt the naturalization of carcerality in our visual fields.
Visual Images Series by Critical Carceral Visualities
Mapping the Carceral in Visual Images offers a methodology for examining visual images related to carcerality. Beginning with a single image of a migrant campsite by Michael Wells, this multimedia report demonstrates how connections within an image allow us to better understand larger, interconnected social problems in the carceral state. Published June 15, 2020.
Images of Detained Youth through an Abolitionist Lens examines pinhole photographs made collaboratively by artist Steve Davis and incarcerated girls in the state of Washington as a withdrawal from the norm of art created in carceral contexts, instead emphasizing ambiguity, “facelessness,” and structural violence rather than individual sentimentality. Published May 19, 2023.