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  STATIC Collaboration with Frances Hawthorne, Ann Kluttz and Mike Wirth    
"Tired Justice"
               
   
           
 
 
               
       
               
       
               
TEXT
The canvas walls are hand-stenciled with excerpts of text written by inmates. Loosely brushed words cover the more mechanically stenciled rows of numbers. These randomly generated numbers correspond to the actual numbering system of jail. Society collectively denies the subversive and debilitating effects of reducing a person to a number, in all realms of life. How disturbing that we take so little notice. Where are the voices of conscience? The individual voices here, though, are louder than the numbers. Their words dominate.

Rather than imposing a particular order on the phrases themselves, we simply selected ones which represent varying points of view. This small collection of writings seems starkly poignant in its simplicity and honesty. Indirectly or directly, much of the thinking centers on regret, responsibility, and self-awareness. Perhaps these qualities offer the viewer glimpse a of hope regarding an aspect of a population so often written off as hopeless.



OBJECTS

SOUND
© Malena Bergmann 2009