Photo Requests from Solitary (PRFS) is an activist art project that offers support to people living in long-term solitary confinement, while affirming their humanity and creativity. The project is an artistic collaboration transcending prison walls and a tool for educating and engaging the public in the movement for solitary reform.
To date, more than 100 men and women held in supermax prisons and solitary confinement units have been invited to request an image of anything at all, real or imagined—and promised that artists on the outside would fulfill their requests.
The resulting photographs provide an archive of the hopes, memories, and interests of Americans who live in extreme isolation and sensory deprivation—conditions that have been widely denounced as torture.
In May 2018, PRFS will begin a year-long exhibit at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. The exhibit will feature photos from the states where PRFS has already done the project (NY, CA, IL) as well as the requests received from people in solitary in PA prisons. Visitors to the exhibit will then be able to sign-up to volunteer to take one of these photos/fulfill the request themselves. In this way, the exhibit will be crowd-sourced and by the end of the year, hopefully, full of images taken to fulfill the PA requests.
Do you wish to participate, or do you have the name(s) and contact info of any individuals who you think might want to participate, or have access to a list of people, who are currently in solitary in PA? This can include on death row, RHU, Ad-Seg or other designations that amount to sustained isolated confinement. PFRS will send people a general form letter that they then fill out and return.
Feel free to pass this along to anyone else in this work.
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