Brian His First Day Out of Sing Sing

by Samantha Casolari

11" x 14" • photography $450

"LIFE AFTER SING SING": As a society we tend to place people into categories, to better recognize them when we have to deal with them. One of these categories is called 'criminals' or in the case of my project, serious violent offenders. We read about them in the newspapers, with sometimes a blurred and bad picture attached to the name. We hate them for the crime they have committed, hoping we will never find a criminal on our path, and then we turn page and move on to the next article. We never wonder who these people are, why they have chosen to become part of this damned cast, why they've chosen our evil as opposed to our right. We never wonder how they were when they were kids, whether they have goals, ambition or even a brain to think. We never consider if at home they have a mother or a father or a sister, waiting for them to come back, or worried that they eventually come back. My project wants to do that. I will follow for months 6 people in probation from Sing Sing, a renowned maximum-security prison 30 miles north of New York. Sing Sing has the most beautiful view, but there are walls so big that you cannot see it when you are inside. I will meet them at the exit of these walls, the day the doors finally open on a freedom they are often scared of. They are serious violent offenders on probation, offered a re-entry initiative because they well behaved. When they leave Sing Sing they are given a $4 Metro Card and a $40 check, and then they walk alone to the train. They come home to the most unserviced of the societies and of the neighborhoods. Most of the time they either do not have house, or they are not allowed back to their families, and they have to go to a shelter. Then they have to follow a series of re-integration programs, based on which their probation will either last or not. Most of the time they fail and go back in. These are all Afro-American men from East Harlem or the Bronx, in their early thirties, who have been in and out of prison since they were teenagers. Although there are plenty of anger management programs, alternative to violence programs, drug addiction programs, in that prison there is no literacy program. A reason for which many of the people on probation, have hard time to understand how our world works, and some can't even read. Through my project I want to show how these people, and their families, look like, not as a category but as individuals. I want to show that people in prison do not age, people in prison are bored but have as many dreams and goals as we do, right or wrong, I want to show that they are individuals. I want to show how our society looks like after years inside these walls, show it through their eyes and how they see it. I will have access to these people, the facility, and their re-integration phase thanks to a good friend of mine, who is case manager working on a state pilot program called TARP (Target Assessment Re-Entry Program), and has been working with people in prison, especially women and youth, for almost a decade. According to this case manager, prison does not punish you for the crime you commit, but for who you are and where you are from. Maybe, by following their path to 'redemption' and their failures we can finally understand why My images wants to tell stories, especially those of people and places that society is not very interested in. I want to show beauty and magic where there is none, lives that are hidden, and framing everyday life from a different angle. I want to show hidden details and characters. Making forgotten realities more close to us, making them speak to us in more intimate way. Lives destroyed by wars, abandoned buildings, strangers we never acknowledge. I want to bring people close to our world, its human beings and its form and geometry, create intimacy and interest. Everywhere there are details worth to tell, and eyes worth to see, with stories that would make everybody sit silent and listen. My objective is that to make photojournalism and reportage like art pieces.