Photography Faculty and Alumni Participate in Photo Requests from Solitary Program

Photo by Keisha Scarville

Photo Requests from Solidarity invites men and women in solitary confinement to request a photograph of anything and connects them with an artist to create that image. Led by Parsons School of Design Faculty Jeanine Oleson in collaboration with Solitary Watch and Tamms Year Ten, the program has produced a variety of requests and works.

The variety of requests they’ve received is astonishing: ranging from “a picture of my family in St. Louis” to “a gray and white horse rearing in weather cold enough to see its breath.” The pictures offer a new way to think about people in isolation. We don’t see what prisoners see, but what they envision. Taken together, these requests provide an archive of the hopes, interests, and memories of people in the “hole.”

BFA Photography alumni have participated in the project: Elizabeth Renstrom, photo editor; and Anthony Tafuro, participating photographer.

To read more about the project and see both the requests and artworks that have been produced, read the VICE article.