Life inside prison walls
An unidentified participant in the Barwon Interviews
An upcoming exhibition at the Faculty Gallery will take visitors to prison, where twelve anonymous men describe their experiences of incarceration.
Opening on 18 April, The Barwon Interviews, is artist Natasha Carrington’s filmic representation of life inside prison walls.
In this experience, first recorded on site at Barwon prison, twelve prisoners present a complex narrative of individual agency, emotional tension and subversion towards the correctional system.
“I wanted to understand how they adapt, manage relationships and respond to the punitive mechanisms of the institution,” Carrington said.
“The hard edge of cells, locks and razor wire, all definitive metaphors of deprivation, are not apparent here. Nor is the prisoner a docile subject given over to the discourse that flows through him.”
Carrington, who is currently completing her PhD in the Department of Fine Arts at Monash University, has conducted and edited these interviews to create large-scale video projections. Legal and ethical requirements for non-identity imposed by the Department of Justice meant that the prisoners could not be recognisable either visually, or through voice.
“Although dehumanising, the anonymity that is formed imbues the work with a strangeness that challenges the viewer’s preconceptions and invites contemplation about society’s constructs of ‘otherness’.”
Included in this exhibition is Carrington’s correspondence with the Department of Justice Human Research Ethics Committee, Corrections Victoria and the prisoners who participated in the research.
The Barwon Interviews will be on display at the Faculty Gallery, Monash University, Caulfield from 14-21 April 2012. Entry is free.
The Faculty Gallery is open 10am-5pm Monday-Friday and 12-5pm on Saturday.
Opening night will take place on Wednesday 18 April from 5-7pm.
The Faculty Gallery and the Department of Fine Arts are part of the Faculty of Art Design & Architecture at Monash University.