Welcome to our online exhibition of Cell Signals, curated by Pete Brook and featuring the work of Adam Chin, Jodi Darby, Robert Gumpert, Eddie Herena, Wray Herbert-King, Brandon Tauszik, Pendarvis Harshaw, and the Free Mind Collective. Through its groupings of rehashed archives, call & response, video-visitation hacks, cinemagraphs, homebrew-AI, and prison newspaper coverage, Cell Signals peers upon the networked image-technologies that shape prisons and the U.S. homeland culture. 

Gallery Exhibition Dates: Summer 2020

Curator’s Essay, Pete Brook, May 19th, 2020

ABOUT THE CURATOR
Pete Brook

Pete Brook is a writer, curator and educator focused on prisons, photos, and power. In 2008, he founded the website Prison Photography to bring together research and writing that unpacks issues of procedure, visibility, distribution and art in imagery as it emerges from the U.S. prison system.  Pete has curated multiple exhibitions, and is perhaps best-known for Prison Obscura (2014-2016) an exhibition that brought together images about mass incarceration that were created outside of the documentary tradition.  Pete holds masters degrees in Art History (University of St Andrews) and Art Gallery and Museum Studies (University of Manchester). He has lectured internationally on the topic of photography, taught art in prisons, volunteered with Books To Prisoners, and served as a board member with University Beyond Bars. His writing and photographs have been published in numerous publications including Aperture, The Atlantic, ICP, Marshall Project, Time, Truthout and Wired. In 2018, Pete was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Fund’s Howard Chapnick Award and a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting for his work teaching the History of Photography in San Quentin State Prison. Pete currently teaches at Sacramento State University, California.

CELL SIGNAL VIDEOS

PRESS RELEASE

This exhibition is generously supported by the Bernard Osher Foundation, Dr. Janet Mohle-Boetani, and Dr. Philip Sager.