The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
Milan Kundera in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979)
ARTIST STATEMENT
Alicia and Sarah intertwined historical documents, found artifacts, research and antique processes to reveal their sculpture. Choosing a limestone rock from the original building at the Old Joliet Prison the sculpture weighs more than 75 pounds. The first 53 prisoners were transferred from Alton prison on May 22, 1858, and tasked with quarrying the limestone. Like the limestone, the piece was created to show the heavyweight the first people incarcerated carried by quarrying the rock nearby and building the prison walls around themselves. Limestone is a sedimentary rock made almost entirely of fossils. Fossils are the remains of ancient plants and animals. The limestone holds thousands of years of history. Similarly to the imprint, the fossils make in the limestone the imprint of the incarcerated are on the limestone. With the use of the original limestone, texts from historical documents, and the dynamics of their placement the sculpture harkens back to a time of “wanted” posters and ransom notes. The Old Joliet Prison was built before Lincoln was president. By 1865, the Joliet prison was one of the most populated prisons in the United States. It has the notoriety of being a prison that shaped the public’s conception of modern mass imprisonment. With civil rights intersecting with racial equity, poverty, and ultimately, the incarcerated, prisons have moved from society’s periphery toward its center. Our work moves the viewer through an experience of recognizing the names of those first incarcerated individuals and how their labor created a limestone monolith that still sits at the start of Route 66.
THE FIRST 53 INCARCERATED WERE 50 MEN & 3 WOMEN WHO ARRIVED ON MAY 22, 1858
Lewis McCoy
Michael McCaugh
John McGahan
John McLaughlin
Joseph Miller
Samuel Moore
John Morgan
Charles (aka Hoosier Bill) Morris
James Morrison
Mary Nolan
Harvey Olmstead
James Robinson
John Robinson
Felix Roony
Patrick Ryan
Thomas Ryan
Alfred Skinner
Alvin F. Smith
Zefery Zephraigm Smith
Christopher Andreas
James Arter
Thomas Barnes
Edward Barron
Issac Bishop
James Blackburn
John Brown
West (aka Sylvester Prime) Bryan
Phillip Bourgard
James Bufton
Peter Cavanagh
John Coffee
David Day
John Dunn (aka Breslin)
Patrick Falls
Henry Gordon
James Gossett
Caleb Harrison
Franklin Jackson
William Johnson
Catharine Sweney
Patrick Toole
Nathan VanCamp
William Wamsbley
John White
John Williams (aka James Kelly)
William Johnson (Thomas)
Sebastian Kieffer
John Knoblock
Albert H. Lambert
Sardin Leighton
Peter Langhan
Lawrence Lennie
Patrick Madden|
Virgina Jennie Mannigan
Edward Mcloud
DOWNLOAD THE EXCEL SPREADSHEET SARAH MADE FOR HER RESEARCH TO LEARN MORE:
With much Gratitude we want to thank: Steven Wright and The Joliet Historical Museum as well as The Old Joliet Prison.
THE JOLIET HISTORICAL MUSEUM IS SEEKING TO COLLECT THE STORIES BEHIND THE PEOPLE OF THE OLD JOLIET PRISON AND ITS 160-YEAR HISTORY IN THE COMMUNITY OF JOLIET. WERE YOU OR A FAMILY MEMBER AN INMATE, OFFICER OR EMPLOYEE? THEY WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU:
EMAIL S.WRIGHT@JOLIETMUSEUM.ORG AND TELL THEM YOUR STORY.
READ MORE ABOUT ART MOVEMENT’S SUMMER OF STONE AND STEEL IN THE HERALD NEWS:
The Artists
ALICIA DIAMOND
ARTIST & PHOTOGRAPHER
Alicia combines community collaboration with a knack for storytelling and strategy. A creative brain and humanist heart, Alicia’s diverse experience includes: yearly campaign strategies for multiple nationally recognized grassroots community-based organizations, content creation for small businesses’, website design for artists & makers, and photographs that make you feel.
Her favorite things are using emergent technologies along with analog art to amplify stories of compassion, courage, culture and community by centering the voices that are often spoken over. A curious creative, Alicia graduated from Columbia with her BA in Photojournalism after graduating from Joliet Central High School.
SARAH POTTER
HISTORIAN & STORYTELLER
Sarah Potter is a dedicated, passionate and experienced researcher and storyteller skilled in abstracting original material, analyzing artifacts, and methodically conducting research. She has a BA and MA degrees that included coursework in genetics, research, optimizing communication and several history courses.
Sarah has completed projects dating back to the 1500's and conducted extensive research in the United States as well as onsite in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. She has been lead researcher and story finder for several film productions including two full length film documentaries, corporate videos and short films.
You can see more of Sarahs Work at:
http://modernancestry.com & http://www.hiddencatalyst.com