I recently took an honors humanities class during my winter quarter of freshman year. This class taught me to reevaluate my common sense, freedom, reopening my vision to the public secrets encapsulated in my own world.
Professor Harkins introduced the idea of an archive and how each person has their own archive, whether they know it or not. This is my Final Archive Project—revealing how my thoughts have changed after taking this class.
For one, the symbols that represent our perceptions of the incarceration system and prisons themselves are trapped inside a single story:
Here are the annotations to my Final Archive Project:
Hotel Hell, State, Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), and Freedom
Before this class, I found myself confused about how the “justice” system worked. After taking this class, I am still confused, but I have answers to why it works the way that it does. At first I thought that learning about the process of getting incarcerated would somehow lead me to answers about how to fix our broken system, but I have realized that our answers are deeply rooted into the institution that continues to be justified and built up today.
Thinking about my final project I wanted to focus more on the logic of freedom with the focus on Ralowe Ampu’s Hotel Hell (cultural artifact), however, as I began to read the piece closely, I realized that my project began to turn into the question: What are the limits of the Prison Industrial Complex? As I was thinking about how to navigate this question, I kept on coming back to the question of how certain people are targeted to have limited freedom in our institution of discrimination against people of color, class, and gender, and how this limited freedom perpetuates and reaffirms the broken institution.
The Box That Represents the PIC
My project starts out with a big box, representing the PIC, then inside that box is San Francisco or any state power, and finally, the smallest box is a representation of Ampu’s room. The box that represents the Prison Industrial Complex is meant to be destroyed with giant holes representing Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete?. Angela Davis’ piece is my artifact, giving me a broader understanding of how Hotel Hell fits into the world and the PIC. In attempts to cover up the holes, a smaller piece of cardboard covers it up, but it is insufficient. This represents the attempts of systems like law enforcement and the justice system to hold up the out-dated values of the carceral system. On the sides of the box, it says “PIC EST. 1502”, which is when the very first known reports of the Atlantic Slave Trade began to be sent to the New World. This box is closed, meant to represent the system that is the most stubborn to change out of all three boxes. As you try to open this box, the first lid will say “1502”, and the second lid will say “It’s in our hands” (the system). Literally, and figuratively. This is trying to emphasize Ampu’s phrase at the end of Hotel Hell, “To sustained fighting, waged from my room, the next largest unit of social transformation under my control. Finally” (Ampu 98).
The Box That Represents San Francisco/State Power
Inside the PIC is a smaller box that represents Ampu’s residential state, San Franciscio, but also state power. This box is without a lid, referring to the possible changes that can be made. However, the possibility of change is limited to the boundaries of the PIC box. The state box can not be changed very much because of the mold that the PIC restricts it to. Ultimately, there is an ironic idea of how the state has a lack of freedom in terms of making change because of the boundaries that the PIC confines each system to. In some sense, the state has tangled itself into a system that it perpetuates with law enforcement and state violence.
The Box That Represents Ampu’s Room
This smallest box is Ampu’s room. When I read Hotel Hell a couple more times after the first time, I noticed that they added a lot of close details to the room. First there are the bedbugs that are scattered around the room. The bed bugs represent the oppression by the owners of the hotel, the state, and ultimately, the institutional discrimination against race, gender, and class. The bedbugs slowly leech into the freedom of Ampu and the measures that are taken to suppress the bedbugs symbolize the “sustained fighting” that is mentioned in the end of Hotel Hell. The most prominently populated area of bedbugs is placed right on top of Ampu’s computer where the writing of Hotel Hell takes place, representing how the oppression has caused all this anger in Ampu. I made it a point to form this boundary between Ampu’s computer and the bedbugs, showing that Ampu has not lost total control and freedom over feeling emotion. There is also a little box of Ampu’s archive that I included in their room. The box includes a ripped photo ID, the several bedbug complaints, Fire to the Prisons, a sign that says “POLICE OUT OF GREECE! US OUT OF THE WORLD”, an 80 mL urine sample with bedbugs in it, and the beat loop that is mentioned in a sleeve with bedbugs in it. The bedbugs dispersed throughout Ampu’s archive represent the oppression by the system and how it is evident in Ampu’s life, however, the fact that Ampu still has an archive represents how the author still has control over their belongings.
On the desk, there is Ampu’s computer that is in the process of writing Hotel Hell, and an alarm clock that reads 9:24PM. Throughout the piece, I felt there was an emphasis on time, where the author repeatedly mentions dates and specific times. I think that when the outer systems (boxes) confine Ampu’s room to a certain amount of freedom, time becomes something that’s slipping out of their control. When time is repeatedly mentioned, there was a sense of urgency to take action.
On all sides of Ampu’s room, there are cameras, which I inferred to be the “creepers” that Ampu talks about. The cameras are a subset of the bedbugs, leeching off Ampu’s life, emotion, and lack of freedom. Ampu connects the bedbugs, cameras/creepers, and cops to a larger idea of violent systemic enforcement. In the absence of physical cameras in Ampu’s residence, there are cops' eyes that are waiting for the “wrong move” to be made by marginalized groups. That leads me to a newer definition of freedom in the framework of surveillance—is someone free when they are not under surveillance? Or is there a different definition of freedom for different groups of people? Does one have to earn their freedom? Does one need to prove they deserve freedom? Are we born free?
The largest symbol is the color red. The color of the walls in Ampu’s room are red, I painted the bed sheets red, and I painted the lens of the cameras to be red. Red universally symbolizes hazard areas, warnings, anger, and evil. Evil is surrounding Ampu in their room, in a place that is supposed to be a safe haven. I imagine it to be a reflection of Ampu’s emotions, as the evil traps Ampu in the room, and the anger from Ampu reflects back off the wall. It's an entrapment of the system compressing Ampu’s emotions into their room. It is a little ironic in the sense that Ampu’s room is suppressed by two other systems, yet the biggest change can be started here. The piece does not mention the cameras to be red, but I painted the lens to be red because I wanted to portray the warning it serves to Ampu—this idea that every action that they take is under the eye of power.
There are so many other symbols and I’ll leave it up to interpretation but one last thing I will say about Ampu’s room is the hole in the wall that is later covered up by maintenance. When one thinks about Ampu’s room as a trap, the hole represents Ampu’s gain of power of expanding their freedom. However, when the hole is covered up, it shows the power dynamics of the system attempting to suppress Ampu’s gain of power. I depict this by putting two bedbugs leeching into Ampu’s room through the hole.
Root Queen of It All
Underneath all the boxes, I have cut holes that allow the “roots” to go through. The roots stem from Ampu’s room and are brought throughout all the boxes, representing all the systems that perpetuate the larger idea of institutional discrimination agianst gender, race, and class. I think of this as the “Root Queen” that Ampu refers to, “queen”, being used sarcastically. Throughout the roots, I also put dollar signs to represent all the systems that are benefitting fiscally. Near the top, closer to Ampu’s room is Cluny and the guard cage that Ampu talks about. As you move further down, it turns into a more universal problem. These roots are what nurtures these systems (boxes), and show what I believe to be the very center of the problem—the deeply rooted discrimination of race, gender, and class, perpetuating the PIC and the inequalities of freedom.
In Our Hands
The system is in our hands. Ampu’s room is held by the state, the state is held by the PIC, and we are holding the PIC. I was hoping to recreate the message that Ampu makes at the very end of Hotel Hell about “sustained fighting”, perpetuating the idea that small acts working towards abolition is our answer when society can’t process a world without prisons.
Attached is a photo gallery of my 3D Project, with a link to Paul Rucker's, "Proliferation"—a representation of United States of America's dramatic invasion of prisons (https://youtu.be/ySH-FgMljYo).
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