Portraits in Prisons

Prisons are places to avoid, to forget. But what about those who live inside them? Faces of people our society hides so that we will not see, preferring to imagine them like inhuman monsters. Luigi Gariglio’s portraits end the prejudice that accompanies and marks these people for the rest of their lives… showing them in their utmost normality and dignity: clean faces of men and women, simple faces, sometimes gentle, sometimes resignated or sad and melanchoclic. Common faces, without any recognizable reference to their past, to anything bad they have done, or to a terrible event. Portraits are matched with images of the cells. Sometimes the cells are bare, other times “furnished” just that much to make the restricted space vaguely more familiar. Everyone writes letters or just their thoughts in many different languages. Often, though, these words never leave the cells. Is this to be considered a warning to “normal people”? Or maybe an open criticism to society that first moulds its creatures and then hides them? Maybe it is just a tribute to normal people whose lives are simply more complicated.