“All publicity works on anxiety.” It’s a quote from John Berger’s book Ways of Seeing that goes over the powers of photography and publicity in regards to advertising. But in a way, it can tie to the publicity, or lack thereof in some cases, of the American prison system and how that shapes our view of that, our judicial system, and inmates. People know of the system, but some don’t like to think about the problems with it, and so they ignore it.
In an article about The Last Supper, Julie Green wrote about her own experience witnessing an execution. She wrote “The rules against photography or videos of executions make sense, in a way, even though the premise that necessitates them is fundamentally grotesque. But by denying video the state controls the narrative surrounding the death penalty.” While she understands why they ban photography, Greene felt that if people actually saw how the death penalty worked, there’d be more discomfort and discussion of the barbarism of capital punishment, there’d be more demand to abolish it. Through The Last Supper, she humanizes the inmates on death row, providing us a snapshot to one with each plate, depicting their last meal and reminding viewers that the inmates were people too, and a number of them were victims of a system that (to set an example) prefers to open-and-shut their cases to meet a quota.
In Thank God I’m Home she provides a snapshot of a different story: the first meals of exonerees after they are freed. If most people don’t like to think about what goes on in prison, they certainly don’t give much thought to the after. Greene does well in making you feel something with each piece, and showing us a snippet of their memories; from the last thing an exoneree ate before going to prison (and the first time they had it again) to the first acts of kindness the exoneree experiences outside.
Of all the plates Julie Greene had created in her The Last Supper project, only two of them were plates made for an exonerated inmate. Whoppers, Fries, and Then is one of them.
Recreated in acrylic, palladium leaf, silk, cotton paper, and glow-in-the-dark on Tyvek, Whoppers, Fries, and Then shows a patchwork image of a whopper burger and Burger King fries is surrounded by flowers, and images of little ducks in hats and Raggedy Ann and Andy. Written around the food is "Exoneree Juan Melendez. 17 years on death row. 1st meal outside, then threw up." Can anyone imagine that? 17 years of waiting, 17 years of praying, 17 years of thinking and fearing the day the needle goes under your skin, in isolation from family and friends. And one day, you're told you're going to be a free man. You get to live. Most of us probably don't give fast food a second thought, it's cheap and convenient. To this man, Burger King was his first meal on the outside after thinking he was going to die. The note that he threw up afterwards implies a lot of things. Could his stomach not handle the fast food? Did he eat it so fast that it made him sick? We can't know what he was feeling at that moment, but we can guess.
Technology has advanced enough over the last couple of decades that some of us probably have a hard time imagining life before or without a smartphone. In T-Bone Phone, Julie Greene tells a story from a different perspective.
T-Bone Phone was made with acrylic, palladium leaf, fabric, and glow-in-the-dark on Tyvek. The gray cloth image of a T-Bone steak is front-and-center on an iPhone, guessing from the size and shape, it may be a third or fourth generation model. On the bottom of the screen there’s a basic mail and phone icon, in between those is a calendar icon that says “Years 27” and next to that is one with the logo for the Chicago Cub. The cellphone is surrounded by patterns of the Peanuts gang. A note from the artist next to the piece says: “Exoneree hadn’t had a steak in 27 years and on release was surprised by all the new technology, like cellphones.” 27 years, three years shy of 30. Nearly three decades of his life in prison, and when he got out, the world around him had changed entirely. A question in mind may be “How can he be so surprised about something like cellphones? Aren’t they able to see the news in prison?” The answer to this is “Only if the people in charge of the facility dictates they can.” It puts into perspective how rights someone loses when they’re incarcerated. It puts into perspective just how much of an inmate’s life is controlled when they’re incarcerated, and just how isolated they are from the outside world. When you remember that some of these people could either be wrongly imprisoned, or their sentences were worse than any crime they committed, it’s all unfair.
They say seeing is believing, but most people never would never see or seek photos of inmates awaiting trial, or release, or their day-to-day lives. We would never hear about their thoughts and feelings the day they leave, or what was going through their minds when the gavel hit. We wouldn’t think whether or not their sentence was just, or if they were guilty to begin with, and this system depends on most of us not knowing how most of the justice and prison system works to get away with it. Some of us probably wouldn’t be thinking about most of this were it not for seeing Greene’s works.
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