I am part of Switchboard, a collaborative group of artists, technologists, and scholars working with currently incarcerated trans and queer people. Inspired by the LGBT hotlines of the 1970s, we make ongoing artwork and writing together, centering trans, non-binary, and queer voices. This work feels urgent as gender-affirming care becomes criminalized in states across the country. Our goal is to build an accessible communication system that holds and shares the stories of criminalized trans and queer people. We necessarily do not include the location of our work with currently incarcerated prisoners.
pictured below: a camera obscura, tower with watchlight and collaborative photograph, video made from lidar scans of youth detention facility.
This project with Vulpes Bastille organized new and ongoing works shaped by artists invested in making visible the unseen operations, architectures, and mechanics of US-based carceral systems.
[above left] collaborative poem 2 in takeaway text for exhibition: “WHY THEY SENT YOU TO THE HOLE”
An installation by: alejandro t. acierto, dan paz, dana middleton, Ava Aviva Avnisan, Molly Merryman
[overview, left] tower with photograph [right] camera obsscura
[overview, far right] video made from lidar scans
tower with collaborative photograph
collaborative light drawing
collaborative poem 1: “Loophole”
