hammer without a nail
At Michigan State University’s (SCENE) Metrospace Gallery, Paz jumps scale from the local Seattle context to the national, to wrestle with photographic processes writ large and with the organizing principles of carceral institutions across the United States. The parallel histories of photography as a medium and the development of the biopolitical prison industrial complex both tell stories about the desire to fix bodies in space and time (to create a nonblurry photograph; to produce a docile and reformed prisoner)and to standardize outcomes (to create multiple, identical photographic copies for mass circulation; to generate uniform industrial-standard goods using prison labor). Every piece in this exhibition is engaged in a sustained conversation with photography and the PIC, resulting in a constellation of objects that dreams towards the full abolition of the global carceral complex.
The culminating solo exhibition as Artist-in-Residence in Critical Race Studies at Michigan State University 2021/22
Excerpt from exhibition essay by Dr. Thea Quiray Tagle:
Youth Advocacy Map(s)
photograph by Ryan J Jones at Michigan State University
Daughter Molds from Mother
( 10 of 18 plaster molds)
photograph by Ryan J Jones at Michigan State University
Daughter Molds from Mother
[wall} gradient installed by Evan Christopherson
