Poetically rendered is the brutal continuity between slavery and Black incarceration. In a golden field, Black prisoners wilt like flowers harvesting crops of profit. A jailer, or rancher, looms on horseback while US dollars float through the air symbolizing the financial windfall of mass incarceration through the prison industrial complex. The painting’s vibrant yet haunting imagery forces us to confront the roots of exploitation, where fields of hand labor have merely changed form, while the harvest remains the same—Black bodies fueling exploitive wealth.
For more information please visit:
The Uncounted Worker - NPR (Transcript & Audio)
What is the prison industrial complex? - Equal Justice Under Law .org
"Slaves of the State" the 13th Amendment & Mass Incarceration - James Madison University
Rehabilitation Over Re-incarceration: Reducing Juvenile Recidivism - Justice Education Project .org