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About the Final Exposure Project
DEATH ROW: without glass
This project started for me when I was 14 or 15 years old. I argued the issue of the death penalty with my father.
Six years of my adult life have been devoted to documenting the unseen, unheard stories of an American subculture: people on death row. I wanted to see if art could make a difference.
Over three thousand men & women exist within state-forfeited lives. Some three hundred have been actually excised since 1976.
I realized before I began that we don't have to travel half way around the world to find some unique phenomenon or recently discovered civilizations to pique our jaded curiosity. The problem of government sanctioned murder is amongst us.
Lorie Savel & I interviewed each of these inmates, unprecedentedly, without bars, without barriers, without restraints...without glass.
My crew & I endured bone chilling snowstorms, cheap motels, greasy meals & as many Neanderthals frisking our bodies in order to bring this story to better light. We fraternized with some of the best legal minds & many of the most depraved individuals. We spent unbelievable amounts of money.
We had to explore the darkest side of the human conditions, even though, it was our objective to humanize the people that we execute; to make sure we understand who we are killing; to start a real debate about capital punishment.
"Every inmate caught in this predicament spends a considerable amount of time on death row before being resentenced or killed. This time almost inevitably leads to change. The people who are being killed are not the people who are sentenced. In some there may be gothic transformations interspersed with mythic rites of passage...Many of the men are stoic when marching to their demise. But even though we can admire the stamina that it takes to endure this ordeal in the super-macho environment, these are not heroic voyages that these men are taking. And we must never be seduced into thinking otherwise." (Excerpt from the book about this project, FINAL EXPOSURE: PORTRAITS FROM DEATH ROW).
The twenty-seven inmates in eleven states that I photographed act as a metaphor for our criminal justice system. Six people have been executed.
Make up your own mind.
Lou Jones
About the Final Exposure project
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Authors' Prefaces
Top of Page
Acknowledgements
Waiting for copy
About the Final Exposure project
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Authors' Prefaces
Top of Page
Foreword
Waiting for copy
About the Final Exposure project
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Authors' Prefaces
Top of Page
Introduction
Waiting for copy
About the Final Exposure project
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Authors' Prefaces
Top of Page
Authors' Prefaces
Waiting for copy
About the Final Exposure project
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Authors' Prefaces
Top of Page
