Institutions haunt me. My mom decided not
to follow medical advice and institutionalize me as an infant. But medical
institutions still grabbed me and confined me during much of my childhood.
I worked hard to be “good” and
“acceptable” to “fit in” and “not cause trouble” because I knew that I was
allowed in nondisabled society only as long as I did not inconvenience them. My
father, a fire fighter, came home regularly with stories of middle-age wives of
his fire company who were put into psychiatric wards for no longer performing
their wifely duties. I learned that even nondisabled status did not protect you
if you did not perform your female role. As a disabled child I only had to look
across the street to see Betty, an adult woman with cerebral palsy, who never
left home, did not have visitors, sat home-bound until she died. The message
was very clear – succeed in the nondisabled world or be locked up.
As a student studying Special Education I
worked weekends with people with intellectual disabilities deciding their
programs even though I was always the youngest and most inexperienced person in
the room. I visited state “schools” - locked wards housing people with
intellectual disabilities who had no education, no rights, no freedom. I
witnessed the abuse but kept silent for fear of losing my own freedom.
As I age I worry about getting put on the
nursing home shuttle. It seems surprisingly easy. One medical crisis, one time
when no one tells the hospital social worker that they will “take care of you”
and whoosh you are off to a nursing home without a phone, money, or even
identification. Hard to break out without those resources.
So when I visit institutions I hear the
previous inmates, I see their marks on the walls, I feel their desperate pleas.
All institutions are the same. All institutions are different only in their
pretense.
Ghosts upon ghosts. The ghost of Ai
Weiwei, the artist forbidden to see this work. The ghost of the American Indians
who re-claimed Alcatraz as Indian land. The ghosts of the federal prisoners -
including 19 Hopi fathers who were jailed for refusing to send their children
to the culturally-killing assimilationist boarding school. All over Alcatraz
island the ghosts communicate. It was a prison from the Civil War until 1963.
Initially housing Confederate soldiers then Native American chiefs then World
War I conscientious objectors and finally it housed federal prison inmates
considered too dangerous for other prisons. American Indians, organized as
Tribes of All Nations, reclaimed and held Alcatraz for 19 months starting in
1969 and stayed until the US government ended their Tribal Termination policy.
They return twice each year, on Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, to challenge the
intentional misrepresentation of these days. The US Park Service now manages
Alcatrazz as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
An sprawling art exhibition made by the
Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei takes place in seven different parts of the
island. He created the site-specific art from photographs and videos because
the Chinese government refused to grant him permission to leave China. This was
one of many punishments against him.
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| [Description: large circle section of the Dragon
kite’s body made from brightly colored paper with thin bamboo supports.] |
I enter the first room called “With Wind”
where one huge dragon kite fills the cavernous space. The bright colored kites
send me to a place of happy children kite flying. But the stark room, the
layers of peeling paint, the cold stone everywhere - floor, walls, ceiling
belie my self-deception. I am seeing these kites in an institution, a prison
for over 100 years. The dragon kite rises and dips from ceiling wires so that
many parts are within reach of a standing person.
Ai delivers his message with colors,
designs and words. On the individual dragon kite panels he puts quotes from
prisoners of conscience such as: “Our march to freedom is irreversible” by
Nelson Mandela.” At the entrance he has a bright red panel which pops out from
the stark concrete peeling walls that reads: “The misconception of
totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. That is not the case. When
you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a window sill.” The
kites bring my eyes upwards away from the dreary cold space inviting me to fly,
to imagine flying away from this cold and heartless place.
I am reminded of all the times I have
been locked up in institutions, mostly medical ones, and wished for this dream
of imagined freedom. I focus on the dragon kite embedding it’s color, shape and
joy deeply in my mind for I know that I will be incarcerated again and I will
need to remember this gift of freedom.
I come into a huge room with stone
pillars in the middle. On the floor surrounding the pillars are giant Lego
boards, called “Trace”, with pixilated portraits of 175 prisoners of
conscience, mostly men, who are currently incarcerated for crimes such as
“inciting thoughts of freedom” and “advocating for the rights of poor children
to an education”. Artists and teachers are heavily represented here. Laid out
on the floor, white Legos between the portraits echoes the way the AIDS Quilt
is displayed.
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[Description: Lego
portrait of Reeyot Alemu, Ethopian journalist]
|
Ai accompanies the portraits with a book
of the images and a short description of why they are imprisoned. In the prison
cafeteria with “Stay Tuned” Ai has pre-addressed postcards so that exhibit
visitors can write to these prisoners and remind them, and more importantly
their jailers, that people care and are watching. Amnesty International
provided the addresses and delivers the postcards to the prisons. With 5,000
visitors every day to Alcatraz, the opportunity for visibility for each
prisoner is powerful.
I am struck by Ai’s wisdom in depicting
portraits in Legos, a child’s medium. Again he reminds me of the powerfulness
of simplicity. Anyone can fly a simple kite, anyone can play with Legos. His
mediums make his message visceral, connecting with universal childhoods. He
speaks directly to our hands, our bodies with this work. No abstract political
posters with defiant messages. Here he just shows us their faces and names.
It’s up to us what we do with that information.
Up in the prison hospital the only
fixtures are the toilets, sinks and a few bathtubs. In Blossom, Ai made
thousands of small white ceramic flowers. He fills a few toilets, sinks and one
bathtub with these ceramic flowers. As I ponder how best to capture his work on
my phone camera, Lisa Honda, a professional photographer is snapping my
picture. I don’t notice her at all because Alcatraz is full of people, there is
always someone snapping a photo near you
- usually of the same thing you are looking at. Lisa likes the image and offers
to send it to me. The peeling stone walls, high ceilings, sparse coldness are
all bathed in cool sunlight while I am a dark silhoutte toed up to a toilet
full of ceramic flowers. Beauty in grunge, celebration in despair, polished white
ceramics create shiny reflections. Detritus.
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[Description: large
white woman in a power wheelchair faces toilet and sink bowls filled with white
ceramic flowers and takes a photo with her cell phone. Photo
credit: p.p.a.h | CREATIVE - Lisa Honda, photographer]
|
In the psych ward Ai created a soundscape
called “Illumination” mixing Hopi songs with Tibetan ones. He honors the
indigenous peoples who both physically inhabited Alcatraz with the Tibetan
monks in exile. Sound enters our bodies at the visceral level. These songs are
unfamiliar to the visitors, an intentional decision to educate and provide the
disorientation common to all psych wards.
I am moved beyond words by the breadth of
these installations. Each one surprises me, enraptures me. Ai’s work speaks to
me at a visceral level. His simple materials pull me in. His message comes
through quietly while I enjoy the art. I leave Alcatraz pondering the
omnipresence of confinement, the strive for freedom, the need for beauty and
resistance.
