Tanner Watkins Professor Nelson Introduction to Visualizing Abolition Studies 5 March 2024 4-Page Paper: The Prison Industrial Complex Cameron Rowland creates art and other visual works to critique the prison industrial complex in the United States. In his work, 1st Defense NFPA 1977, 2011, 2016. Nomex fire suit, distributed by CALPIA, Rental at cost, two fire suits are hung on a blank white wall, with two large windows on either side which allow the viewer to see the buildings outside the studio space. The fire suit on the left is yellow in color like most fire suits in California, while the one on the right is bright orange. Each bears the same high-visibility detailing on their sleeves, pant-legs, and waistline. The title mentions that the …show more content…
Although prison firefighters and civilian firefighters work alongside each other, Rowland’s work emphasizes the separation of the two by displaying each kind side by side, and the heightened aspects of visuality surrounding the color of the prison jumpsuit—bright orange. In doing so, Rowland helps introduce the concept of the prison industrial complex and demonstrates some of its defining characteristics—stripping people of their status, or determining they never had any status to begin with. Sara Benson describes that “the New World version of democracy’s citizen [was] one that could be withdrawn from civic status through birth, color, or crime” (476). The prison industrial complex has structured its vision in the United States at different times to see people as humans, Americans, and citizens based on these categories. This old and yet ever-present cycle has instilled a view in our society that certain people are fundamentally different, do not deserve to be citizens or share the same liberties as other people in America, and deserve to be punished. The prison industrial complex has worked over the span of centuries to accomplish