"Biography: Unwritten", Selections from an Installation

Biography: Unwritten considers the issue of wrongful conviction with a focus on the most egregious of erroneous judgements – the death penalty. My goal is to create a book for each of the 200 people exonerated since the 1970s, when the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment after a brief moratorium. The title of each book is a name, suggesting the book is a biography. But pages are cemented shut, like the harshness of a prison cell and lost time. It is not until the epilogue where the viewer reads facts of the wrongful conviction and time on death row. A statement also appears, such as Missed having a family – derived from research into each person and suggesting missed milestones or moments. These are the empty biographies of innocent people who were incarcerated on death row for crimes they did not commit. Viewers consider their own lives and the preciousness of milestones which become even more profound in their absence. Each book sits upon untitled books, paying homage to those wrongly convicted but who perished on death row. Viewers are encouraged to pick up a book, witness its lack of content and identify with the subject, imagining the experience of an innocence denied.