join us for an open-house exhibition closing with lauren

Sunday, january 14, 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Lauren Davies’ newest project, Isolated Objects, explores the history of The Ohio State Reformatory located in Mansfield, Ohio. Built with prison labor, the massive penitentiary opened in 1896 with a focus on rehabilitation, religion, and trade skills training programs. By 1960, policies had changed and the aging Gothic/Romanesque facility had become a densely overpopulated maximum-security prison. Conditions had dramatically deteriorated over the years and in 1980 inmates filed a class action lawsuit against the State of Ohio. In 1990, a federal court ordered The Ohio State Reformatory permanently closed due to dangerous overcrowding and inhumane conditions. Eventually the prison re-opened for public tours and the facility is now included on the National Register of Historic Places and is perhaps most well known as the shooting location for the popular film, “The Shawshank Redemption.”

Lauren’s photographs center on the isolated objects that remain on-site. The photographed objects include a variety of damaged chairs; broken bunk beds held together with rags; and the warden’s parlor outfitted with plastic flowers. Each mundane object possesses its own history that seems to bear witness to the life of an incarcerated individual while also reflecting on the larger history of incarceration in the United States. Utilizing a working process that is similar to previous projects, Lauren translates her photographs into digitally woven tapestry images. Lauren works with each image to create a stark composition that enhances the solitary nature of an individual object. She reworks the photographic tapestry weavings via hand dyeing, sewing, cutting, collage processes and unravelling the threads that comprise the image.