The prisoners were allowed to request photographs of anything they wished, real or imagined. Each was carefully composed, and tenderly received. They were the only connection the men in solitary confinement at Illinois’ Tamms super maximum security (supermax) prison had to the outside world.
Some requests were sentimental: “My Auntie’s house” or “The Chicago skyline.” Others were wishful: “My mother, who died last year, with a pile of money, a hummer and a big castle.” And still, more were bizarre: “A lovesick clown holding an old-fashioned feathered pen.”
Meet Laurie Jo Reynolds
Worst of the Worst? Where did they come from? Who are they? Where are they Going?
116 Art Building West, 141 N. Riverside Dr. — March 24 at 7 p.m. (Free)
In this public lecture, Reynolds and other Tamms collaborators will speak about the work that led to the closing of the notorious supermax prison in southern Illinois.
Space Ghost (screening)
Public Space One — March 25 at 7 p.m. (Free)
Reynold’s 2007 film explores the experiences of prisoners by making comparisons to those of astronauts.
Like an estimated 80,000 prisoners across the U.S., the men at Tamms were held in small, windowless cells and denied human contact and sensory stimulation. Labeled the “worst of the worst” by government officials and prison proponents, they were left to waste away in isolation.
But, thanks to the work of artists, activists and dedicated community members, Tamms was shuttered in January of last year after more than a decade in operation. At the head of the campaign was Atlanta, Ga. native, Laurie Jo Reynolds.
Reynolds—an artist, policy advocate and researcher—was the driving force behind Tamms Year Ten, a volunteer grassroots legislative campaign founded in 2007 with the goal of closing the now notorious prison. The movement began slowly, beginning with Reynold’s involvement in a poetry committee that mailed verse to men behind the prison’s walls.
The group’s efforts were rewarded in kind, with one prisoner responding “The days pass like a lightning Flash. The night is slow like an earthworm.” Others took the opportunity to express their bouts with depression, psychosis and self-mutilation, all symptoms that Reynolds attributes to solitary confinement.
“Interaction and sensory stimulation are physiological needs,” she said in a 2013 address. “Without them, our brains go into crisis. When people break down in solitary, it’s not because they are weak; it is because they are human.”
With that in mind, and fueled by an especially memorable encounter with the mother of a man in Tamms, Reynolds took to her trademark legislative art—work designed to create engagement, awareness and change through creative intervention in government. She and her team built relationships with legislators, held hearings, spoke with reporters, garnered the support of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and organized lobby days. They also hosted artistic performances and built the Photo Requests from Solitary program, which catapulted their cause onto the national stage.
In 2012, the last year of Reynold’s campaign, Tamms Year Ten was invited to host an exhibition at Sullivan Galleries in Chicago. Overflowing with five years of posters, photos, poems, fact sheets and ephemera, the space became an amalgamated art display, workroom and organizational hub.
It was there that Reynolds convened meetings, recruited gallery visitors and hosted events.
This unique blend of creativity and activism is just the kind of approach the legislative artist champions: “Artists are uniquely qualified to affect law and policy,” she explained in an email. “We are used to working within limits, ignoring limits and attempting the impossible. And, compared to the regular political players, we have the freedom of the outsider: We are in the world, but not of it.”
The successful effort to close the Tamms supermax has made Reynold’s one of the most lauded artist-activists across the country, and the proud recipient of the Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change. But her accomplishments can be seen most brilliantly through the eyes of those she has helped.
“Being in Tamms felt like being held underwater and drowning, not being able to breathe. Leaving that place was as if you suddenly came up for air. You’re gulping in air. You feel alive and real again,” wrote a former inmate after being transferred to another facility.
In addition to her work with Tamms, Reynolds is known for her 2007 cult classic Space Ghost, an experimental video in which a series of inmate phone calls are juxtaposed with footage of astronauts and prisoners. She has also previously been awarded the Soros Justice Fellowship—supporting her research and advocacy against sexual abuse and recidivism—and a Creative Capital grant for Honey Bun Comedy Hour, a video variety show depicting prison life.
Reynolds will be in Iowa City March 24-26 as a guest artist of Exuberant Politics, a year-long project by Public Space One and Legion Arts with sponsorship from several UI departments, designed to encourage community discussion, political involvement and awareness. She will give a public lecture, Worst of the Worst? Where Did They Come From? Who Are They? Where Are They Going? on Monday, March 24. Her film Space Ghost will be screened Tuesday, March 25.
Samantha Doyle lives and works in Iowa City.
