The viewer is invited to select from a series of items (listed below) and juxtapose these with the prison bed (pictured above) to create his or her own artistic statement.

Through selecting and juxtaposing an object, the visitor engages in the act of creation and interpretation.

The visitor is then invited to fill in a card which credits the viewer/participant as the artist of this particular incarnation of the work and indicates the reason for the choice of items and the statement that this juxtaposition makes in the eye of its creator.

This card is then posted on the wall accompanying the installation. After 15 minutes or less, depending on the number and frequency of participants, a new card is posted and the previous card is inserted into a Book of Fame (with plastic pockets sleeves to hold the cards)

Optional items for juxtaposition might include:

• blanket
• teddy bear
• hypodermic needle
• hat
• dress
• newspaper
• magazine
• slippers
• briefcase
• work boots
• dress shoes
• alarm clock . . .

 

According to Correctional Service of Canada, there are 52 federally managed penitentiaries and 17 community correctional centres in Canada.

On a typical day there are 12,600 offenders in the institutions; 8,500 offenders supervised in the community by 71 parole officers. There are 175 halfway houses across the country.

Federal offenders represent 5% of the total number of persons sentenced to custody in Canada and 6% of offenders in the community.

Canada spends $1.5 billion annually on the Federal correctional system. The annual cost of maintaining an offender ranges from $108,277 for maximum security to $41,583 in a community correctional centre with an overall average of $62,115.

One in three inmates is serving a sentence of more than ten years.

After serving a sentence the offender is deemed rehabilitated, to have paid his or her debt to society, and released back into the community.

If so many are, or have been, deemed 'socially unacceptable', what's wrong with society?

We get as good as we give.