Columbia / Exhibition
September 8th, 2005,The museum on the ground floor of Columbia's 600 S Michigan building is showing a new exhibition.
I walked up to the first piece, a portrait of a man sitting on a car, eyes hard and pointed at the viewer. The title card read, <i>(Name), Location of Alibi. Served 7 years of a Life sentence for Rape, Aggravated Assault and Murder.</i>
Instantly, I despised him. The next photo was much the same, a portrait and a title card showing a man who had served a small fraction of their imprisonment, standing in the open world, with his crime and the relevance of the location he was photographed. Over and over again I stood before such portraits. Rapists, murderers, kidnappers. One of them was standing next to his mother and daughter. The title card indicated that he hadn't seen his daughter in the 11 years he was imprisoned for.
That's when I noticed the name of the exhibition, writ large across the wall I'd had my back to until this point.
<B>The Innocents: a collection of portraits of the wrongfully imprisoned</b>
(I should note here that I didn't take any notes, so the specfic crimes, portraits, and the exact wording of the exhibition title is merely my recollection, and not actual fact).
You can imagine my reaction, I'm sure.
Crap, class has ended. More thoughts on this later.