This dypthic was produced in the context of Edgar Martins’ What Photography & Incarceration have in Common with an Empty Vase, a project which results from a collaboration with inmates, incarcerated in the West Midlands, their families and a myriad of other individuals and community groups in the region.
By using image and text, new and historical photography, evidence and fiction, Martins’ work proposes to scrutinise how one deals with the absence of a loved one, brought on by enforced separation through incarceration and lockdown. This artwork was inspired on a snide remark made by an offender Martins befriended during his incursions into Birmingham prison and who commented “Lockup is a piece if piss compared to lockdown”, after his release during the first lockdown of 2020.
By giving a voice to inmates and their families and addressing prison as a set of social relations rather than a physical space, Martins’ work proposes to rethink and counter the sort of imagery normally associated with incarceration and confinement. The project thus wilfully circumvents images whose sole purpose, Martins argues, is to confirm the already held opinions within dominant ideology about crime & punishment: violence, drugs, criminality, race.
This artwork is also available, separately, as a unique edition NFT in the form of a 30sec video with original audio. Please contact the studio to enquire about purchasing the NFT.
(This artwork is available VAT free through The Moth House’s site only. Free shipping also applies to UK and Europe.)
