Against Mug Shots
Los Angeles Review of Books, August 12, 2021: Against Mug Shots
“As thorny as the debate over ethical representation can be, the notion of ethical representation in the context of the US penal system might appear so controversial as to stymie debate entirely. The American prison is a site of simultaneous hypervigilance and social invisibility. Imprisoned people are constantly “seen” by the state and its agents but hidden from sight to their community, denied the sort of image-making that occurs casually and naturally between free people. Instead, they are captured by surveillance camera footage, court sketches, facial recognition technology, mug shots. The judgment these images confer is immediate; it allows no due process.”
Additional reading:
Hatty Nestor’s Ethical Portraits: In Search of Representational Justice on bookshop.org
BOMB, June 30, 2021: Imagination is a Radical Tool: Hatty Nestor Interviewed by Lucie McLaughlin
Granta, Summer 2021: In Conversation: Hatty Nestor & Nathalie Olah
Frieze, April 28, 2021: What Portraits of the Incarcerated Can Tell Us About Our Human Rights
