Events – gehen und genießen

Worldwide, prisons are ‘home’ 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? Noorderlicht Photogallery 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 be fore 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 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 how current practices of mass incarceration reflects our changing sense of decency and justice.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment
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 ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. But when is punishment cruel and unusual? To assist in the public discussion of this issue, photography helps by providing insight into the various facets play a role in the question.

Participating photographers
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, each use their own strategies, materials and techniques. Given the extent of access to prisons, they work with amateur photography, alternative processes, texts, painted images, digital manipulation or traditional black and white documentary photography. Much of the work is being shown in The Netherlands and Europe for the first time.

Pete Brook
Pete Brook is a freelance writer who focuses on the politics of media, visual culture and social justice issues, to the extent that they relate to photography and photojournalism. He publishes the results of his research on the widely-read blog Prison Photography. He recently made a crowdfunded round trip through the United States, Prison Photography on the Road. The outcome of that road trip is to be seen in this exhibition.

Hester Keijser
Hester Keijser is a freelance curator specialising in photography from and about the Middle East. She is presently working as the in-house programmer for The Empty Quarter Gallery in Dubai. She also writes the stimulating and influential photographyblog mrs.deane.

Catalogue
Cruel and Unusual is accompanied by a unique catalogue in the form of a newspaper. In addition to visual material from the main exhibition, the publication includes articles, blogs, interviews, sketches and supplemental material from other photographers who Pete Brook has encountered during Prison Photography on the Road.

Opening and lecture
Andrea Stultiens (www.andreastultiens.nl) will be responsible for the opening of the exhibition on 17 February, at 5:00 p.m.
On 18 February, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., the guest curator Pete Brook will present a lecture on his road trip. In it he will also discuss the roles and responsibilities of bloggers in the light of the decline of print media.

Open Wed – Sun, noon to 6:00 p.m.
Admission free
(photo by Deborah Luster)