Fashion can inspire deeper criticism of the carceral system, but there are risks when profit comes before principle.
This article was originally published at Prism
Three pairs of boots, size 13D Doc Martens, have traversed unthinkable journeys and lived many lives. Manufactured by Bob Barker, the leading clothes manufacturer for American carceral facilities, they were first purchased in the southern Illinois prison where Rocko, a writer and artist, has been incarcerated since 2016. This past September, the boots were on display at an exhibit featuring the work of a handful of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated artists at All Street, a small gallery in New York’s Lower East Side. They were there not just as pieces of fashion, but as a way to spur deeper considerations into prison life.
In a blurb about the collection featured in the exhibit “Visitation: Abolitionist Creations For and Far From Home,” Rocko [credited as James Jones in the exhibit] writes that he drew expressions of “freedom, hope, justice, equality, and optimism,” using the boots that incarcerated people wear everywhere they go on the inside. The once plain black shoes have been splashed with vibrant color and illustrations and transformed into mobile poster boards with radical abolitionist messages like “Free Us All/Love & Solidarity” and “Wage love, destroy all borders/Abolish ICE.” The latter pair also shows a cartoon rendering of a man, perhaps Rocko himself, free.
Read More
