Supermax: Structures of Confinement and Rationales of Punishment

Forthcoming:

Exploring the rationales behind the building of maximum security prisons, “Supermax” offers rarely-heard industry insider assessments of the architectural aims behind these facilities and presents an otherwise not available opportunity to examine these places from directly above.

“Supermax” is conceived as a video exhibition accompanied by a discussion forum that will address the future role of prison architecture and respond to the growing impasse facing the corrections praxis today.

?The design of supermax prisons assumes that prisoners’ disposition is to act violently, an assumption that is reflected in each and every design detail. It is a (…) design, which aims to pre-empt administratively defined dangerousness. The architectural design not only reflects the discourse of dangerousness, but also realizes it.”

Sharon Shalev, SUPERMAX: Controlling Risk Through Solitary Confinement (Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2009)

“Supermax” is in its launch phase. Please support the development of this critical work with your tax-exempt donation through our fiscal sponsor, the New York Foundation of the Arts, thereby directly increasing the number of prison locations that can be covered with this vital production to help bring about practical reform concepts.

UNTITLED XV Arizona

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