Artists' Books

Tear Down the Walls!

Today we’re looking at Artists' Books that speak to the theme of prison abolition. As Angela Davis asks: "What would it mean to imagine a system in which punishment is not allowed to become the source of corporate profit? How can we imagine a society in which race and class are not primary determinants of punishment? Or one in which punishment itself is no longer the central concern in the making of justice?"

The following books engage with this question in really innovative ways. Let’s start with Quilt of Hope: Vancouver Artists for Black Liberation.

While this book is not exclusively focussed on prison abolition or movements to defund the police, these topics are inevitably woven throughout a broader discussion around Black liberation through art and creativity. The book gathers together a collection of 25 artists’ responses to the question: "What is the role of artists in dismantling anti-Black racism?"

Responses vary, but they nearly always circle back closely to Toni Cade Bambara’s assertion that "the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible." Contributor Kali Works argues that art offers a foundational framework for visualizing spaces of freedom, saying that "Our role is to give us confidence to want liberation for ourselves, to not be mentally beholden to institutional power." Another Vancouver-based artist, Desirée Dawson, suggests that art can provide models for dissent, explaining that her role is to "offer up ways to disrupt the systems that are failing us." And Emily Carr alum Sade Alexis asserts that the artist’s task is to "create spaces where joy, ingenuity and hope fuels our spirits and our drive for change!" These are all calls to action – whether they ask us to dismantle existing systems, or to help envision futures where those systems become irrelevant. And make no mistake, this call implicates its readers, since "dismantling anti-Black racism is a responsibility shared by all Vancouver residents."

In Quilt of Hope’s final pages, the demands of Black Lives Matter Vancouver are listed, including "abolishing police and prisons, as they serve the primary purpose of oppressing marginalized communities and protecting the riches of the wealthy minority of denizens." What this book does so beautifully, is to map out how intricately art and activism are bound, interwoven – how very quilted together the two are, leaving its readers with a robust understanding of how the demands of Black Lives Matter Vancouver, the passages from visionary local artists, and the art itself, are all one in the same rallying call, since "Art and liberation are kin."

Title: Quilt of Hope
Curator: Nanyamka (Nya) Lewis
Editor: Nic Wayara
Call Number: M665 B533 Q55
Publisher: Moniker Press
Publication Date: 2020

The second book we’re looking at is Ting Chak’s Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention.

This book examines spaces of migrant detention, asking “How does architecture inflict violence on human bodies and minds?” Through comics, interviews, quotes, and architectural sketches, Chak traces a web of migrant detention centres across Canada, revealing spaces and people made invisible through purposeful isolation. Chak's diagrams and floor plans reveal much about how migrants – held solely because of their undocumented status – are controlled and managed within the prison industrial complex. "Inside, you lose your spatial bearings and markings, you lose your identity, and subjecthood" one page reads. Another says "Inside, they never let you see the horizon." This manufacturing of isolation and otherness is profitable beyond just fortifying borders, reinforcing white supremacy, and ensuring an exploitable labour force – it’s big business, and growing. Chak’s website explains that migrant detention centres are "the fastest growing incarceration sector in North America's prison industrial complex," adding that "there are billions of dollars made in the incarceration of human bodies” (Arendt in Chak). It makes sense, then, that these locked away bodies are made invisible; as Chak forwards, “The detention centres, too, are undocumented.”

But Chak does that work of shining a light into some of the darkest corners of the Canadian prison system, illuminating parts of a migrant’s journey so rarely portrayed, since we typically see representations of “linear progressions from home to host nations.” And too, this book shows us that architecture is not neutral, that the anonymous individuals who design spaces of confinement are complicit, just as we are all complicit in the making, and potentially the un-making, of the spaces, borders, and relationships that make migrant detention a reality.

Title: Undocumented: the Architecture of Migrant Detention
Author: Tings Chak
Call Number: C435 U53
Publisher: Architecture Observer
Publication Date: 2014

For more library resources on policing, prisons, and abolition, please check out this guide.