Serving Time
For the exhibit Prison Sentences: The Prison as Site, The Prison as Subject, at The Historic Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA
1995
Materials & Dimensions:
cell debris, plaster, paint, bluestone, gold leaf, flour, moss, ailanthus sapling, mosquito netting, iron oxide, wood & plastic (for skylight covers)
Three adjacent cells; each cell 7'4" wide x 11'7" long, arched ceilings 10'6" h to 15'4" high
The site was in the oldest cellblock in the Eastern State Penitentiary, in three adjacent cells. The prison was in a state of advanced deterioration at the time of the exhibition.
I cleaned each cell of the debris from collapsed wall surfaces and cleaned and painted the skylights white. The back wall of each cell was re-plastered except for the traces left from a former ventilation aperture and a door to an individual exercise yard, both of which had been permanently sealed when additions were made to the prison. The middle cell's walls were completely restored. A bluestone threshold was made for each cell, with a different phrase engraved on each stone: the left was "Doing Time", the center "Marking Time", and the right "Making Time". I veiled the entrances for "Doing Time" and "Making Time" on the inside so that the interiors could be viewed, but not entered.
Each cell corresponded to a structure left out of the classic old plan of the prison: the greenhouse, the chapel, and the bakery. I engraved this plan on the back wall of the right hand cell, through the white plaster top coat to the grey coat beneath. Every Sunday morning, I visited and tended the cells. A description of each cell is below:
- Doing Time -
This cell corresponded to the greenhouse. Moss was installed to completely carpet the floor. A cylinder of rammed cell debris was in the center. In it was planted a young Ailanthus altissima tree (aka "tree of heaven", "tree from hell"). Moss and tree were watered regularly. As the tree grew to the skylight, it blocked the light. Both tree and moss occur naturally on the site and are active in its ongoing deterioration. - Marking Time -
This cell corresponded to the chapel. After the plaster was restored, the walls, floor, and steel bed were painted white and the skylight was gold leafed. On the wall containing the entrance, which would have only been seen by the prisoner, I marked the phrase "in time" repeatedly in red iron oxide over the course of the exhibition until the 15-foot wall was filled to the top. The gold leafed skylight enhanced the incoming light and created a golden glow, which fell on the threshold in the afternoon on sunlit days. The available light also reflected from the red oxide-marked wall to cast a faint pink glow throughout the cell. The restoration of the plaster walls also restored the acoustics, so that sound in the cell echoed as it did when the prison was new. - Making Time -
This cell corresponded to the bakery. The plan of the prison (at 4 feet square) was engraved on the back wall, centered on the former ventilation aperture. Every second or third week, I sifted a fresh coat of flour onto the floor and the bed frame after I had removed the previous sifting, blue with mold. Some of this mold I mixed with fresh flour and water and painted into a section of the engraved plan so that the plan decayed over the span of the exhibit in the same order that the actual sections of the prison were built. At the end of the exhibition, the plan was in complete decay, thus mirroring the edifice it portrayed.
The "correspondences" of the cells to the greenhouse, chapel, and bakery were indirect and associative. In the case of the greenhouse, plantings under controlled circumstances versus what happens when they get out and--as in ESP--dismantle the architecture that would enclose. The chapel in the sense of idealistic aspirations that go askew in this reality, but also in the sense of the marking of time and light that maintain hope. Also, the marking on the wall was inspired by a name that a prisoner had written above the door of his cell (in a different cell block) in gothic black letter where it was evident to him always but invisible to his guards. The "in time" was written in iron oxide stain since rust is one of the indicators of the erosion of the structure in the passing of time. The phrase applies to eventualities of both freedom and dissolution. In the case of the bakery, all things made fresh decay eventually and thus the action must be repeated indefinitely. Thus we are both bound and nourished by making.