Windows from Prisons USA

My teacher told me about this – Windows from Prisons – this is an amazing project that combines the two things I am passionate about, damn, I wish I had thought of that myself 🙂

In America they really seem to be into their community support prison programs. Of course they’d want to be, with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Nonetheless, the fact that some many ordinary people get behind these project, communicate and connect, that I admire.

Windows From Prison* is an ongoing project that uses photography as a way to connect incarcerated men, women, and teens to their past while creating space and humanistic entry points for students, faculty, NGO’s, family members of incarcerated individuals, former prisoners, and policy makers to engage with the sources, impacts, and alternatives to mass incarceration.

Beginning with creative writing workshops with incarcerated men, women, and teens, the project asks:

“If you could have window in your cell, what place from your past would it look out to?”

These responses become photo requests that are collaboratively produced by students, former prisoners, artists, activists, and many others.

Do check them out http://www.windowsfromprison.com/

And here’s an article in the Guardian with more photos.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/aug/05/windows-from-prison-view-jail-cells-project-us-inmates-in-pictures#comments

LUX Helsinki Light Festival 2014 Lantern Park

Lantern Park is a project located in Hesperia park, a popular city centre sea-side space. Curated by Kaisa Salmi, an environmental and community artist and a PhD researcher from Aalto University, this strand of LUX Helsinki presented over 150 lanterns created over the past years by Helsinki artists and designers.  I was very lucky to be a part of this event, developed in collaboration with the University. 

Lux Helsinki is an annual festival taking place in the darkest time of the year in venues, sometimes indoor bot mostly outside, including the Senate square, Hesperia park, the Opera House, the Opera house and Cable factory to list a few. The festival features multiple artists from all over the world, this year including the renowned Spanish fashion designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada with the design agency D-Facto with Corazón, a huge heart beating in countless colours on Senate Square. Urban Flipper, by the French company CT Light Concept, turned the façade of the New Student House into a giant pinball game, which can be played onsite by visitors. Fire circus and large scale installations were also part of the festival.

Making this a bit ridiculous and a bit pathetic lantern was the best fun. Watching kids and adults walking up to the sculpture, looking in, turning the handles was a rewarding experience, one that conceptual artists don’t often acquire. The melancholy and the homey kitsch of the Point of View seemed to balance out the beautifully designed hanging lanterns, and the smart light sculptures on the ground and overall I felt the Lantern Park in Hesperia felt like a place of dreams, and it was incredibly exciting to contribute to such a large project engaged with by many a thousand of people.

Below are examples of the stunning lanterns by other participants such as Charli Clark, Rik Van der Laan, Alise Brante and others.