THE Barwon Interviews, an exhibition by Melbourne-based artist Natasha Carrington currently showing at the La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, seeks to give a voice to men who have been silenced through incarceration.
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The hard edge of cells, locks and razor wire, the definitive metaphors of deprivation, are not apparent in this filmic representation of imprisonment.
Nor is the prisoner a docile subject given over to the discourse that flows through him as Foucault contends.
In this experience recorded at Barwon Prison, 12 inmates present a complex narrative of individual agency, emotional tension, and subversion towards the correctional system. As required by the prison authorities, no individual is identifiable.
The anonymity that the work assumes challenges the way we encounter the “self”, as much as it serves as a signifier for questions about “otherness”.
