Alexis Lambrou used Photo Requests from Solitary (PRFS) in a digital photography cirriculum with students at Bard High School.
PRFS is a participatory project that invites men and women held in long-term solitary confinement in U.S. prisons to request a photograph of anything at all, real or imagined, and then finds a volunteer to make the image. The astonishing range of requests, taken together, provide an archive of the hopes, memories, and interests of people who live in extreme isolation.
This unit harnessed technology in the classroom by using Google Cardboard and The Guardian’s 6×9 VR experience. Students were ‘placed’ in a prison cell as they listened to six men and one woman share their experiences of solitary confinement.
The cirriculum ended in an exhibition that featured student work, the requests from men and women in solitary confinement and students’ personal reflections and stories around incarceration.
Learn more about the project: http://photorequestsfromsolitary.org/
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