Artist Statement,
There are so many life and death issues in our modern world.
We chose this one for its perversity, executing men after holding them in cages for extended periods of time, seems to us, cruel, cowardly, disgraceful, embittering, and poisonous, it is a practice that encourages violence and bizarre behavior. It is shameful for a democratic society to practice such totalitarian racist violence.
Because we are a democracy we must acknowledge that we all choose this death penalty, it is our elected method of dealing with certain people in our society, people who are poor and/or non white.
It is obviously an archaic practice passed down to our generation from the slave culture. Obvious because most of the victims continue to be black and poor. Obvious because most of the executions go on in the south. Obvious because the methods are hardly different from lynching. Obvious because of the gang violence practiced by these state agencies in bringing individual men and women to their deaths.
We have selected a series of cases that illustrate the inconsistencies, the injustices, the racism, the sexism and the blood mania that defines our system of injustice. These twenty images we hold up as our argument against the death penalty, and with these images we call for an end to the death penalty!
Sam and Katah, April 2008
There are so many life and death issues in our modern world.
We chose this one for its perversity, executing men after holding them in cages for extended periods of time, seems to us, cruel, cowardly, disgraceful, embittering, and poisonous, it is a practice that encourages violence and bizarre behavior. It is shameful for a democratic society to practice such totalitarian racist violence.
Because we are a democracy we must acknowledge that we all choose this death penalty, it is our elected method of dealing with certain people in our society, people who are poor and/or non white.
It is obviously an archaic practice passed down to our generation from the slave culture. Obvious because most of the victims continue to be black and poor. Obvious because most of the executions go on in the south. Obvious because the methods are hardly different from lynching. Obvious because of the gang violence practiced by these state agencies in bringing individual men and women to their deaths.
We have selected a series of cases that illustrate the inconsistencies, the injustices, the racism, the sexism and the blood mania that defines our system of injustice. These twenty images we hold up as our argument against the death penalty, and with these images we call for an end to the death penalty!
Sam and Katah, April 2008