Who is invisible? Why? The siloing of humans makes it extremely easy to objectify and reduce them to narrow stereotypes that don’t encompass the full range of their complexities. Often, the people who endure this cruel denial of humanity are in adverse positions that impede their right to be seen and to be heard. We live in a society that exploits invisibility in order to maintain unequal distributions of power.

So, it’s crucial to ask ourselves: who is invisible? And why?

The women that you see in these portraits are forcibly hidden. They live behind concrete walls and barbed wire, stripped of freedom and a proper name. The women that you witness are serving life sentences at Dayton Correctional Institution. Yet, they are so much more than that. Just like you and me, they are living beings worthy of respect and dignity. I fully understood this after being heavily involved in volunteer work at the prison. When I met these women, all the ideas that permeate our culture of what prisoners are supposed to be like washed away. The more I got to know these women, the more I felt compelled to broadcast that prisons are the problem and not the prisoners.

My utmost presence, sincere respect and dedication was what I offered. For months, I met with the women to collaboratively discuss our intentions and praxis. In two hour windows, I set up a 4x5 film camera, two simple lights and a black cloth in the prison visiting room to make the portraits while under strict supervision. Accessories, makeup and jewelry were available for the women to craft their own image. Allowing them as much agency as possible in the process was important, as well as fostering a space where freedom, curiosity and play could occur despite the constraints of a being somewhere meant for punishment and dehumanization.

My intent is to create images that combat oversimplified and harmful narratives of prisoners and to focus on their humanity, above all else.