The San Quentin Project

by Nigel Poor, Reginald Dwayne Betts (Contributor)

The San Quentin Project collects a largely unseen visual record of daily life inside one of America’s oldest and largest prisons, demonstrating how this archive of the state is now being used to teach visual literacy and process the experience of incarceration. In 2011, Nigel Poor―artist, educator, and cocreator of the acclaimed podcast Ear Hustle ―began teaching a history of photography class through the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison. Neither books nor cameras were allowed into the facility, so an unorthodox course with a range of inventivemapping exercises students crafted “verbal photographs” of memories for which they had no visual documentation, and annotated iconic images from different artists. After the first semester, Poor says, “one student told me he could now see fascination everywhere in San Quentin.” When Poor received access to thousands of negatives in the prison’s archive, made by corrections officers of a former era, these images of San Quentin’s everyday occurrences soon became launchpads for her students’ keen observations. From the banal to the brutal, to distinct moments of respite, the pictures in this archive gave those who were involved in the project the opportunity to share their stories and reflections on incarceration.

168 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2021

About the author

Nigel Poor is the co-creator, co-host, and co-producer of Ear Hustle (PRX & Radiotopia). A visual artist and photography professor at California State University, Sacramento, Nigel's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the SFMOMA and de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. In 2011, Nigel got involved with San Quentin State Prison as a volunteer teacher for the Prison University Project. Nigel lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Reviews

[Drew Plummer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somewhere between a coffee table book, a chronicle, a book on the philosophy of photography, and an exploration of what it means to exist as a human bereft of freedom but retaining humanity. The carefully curated images from 50 years of San Quentin’s history are haunting, moving, and insightfully annotated and analyzed by men with a direct insight into the place (physical and otherwise) where those images were captured.

Augmented by beautiful, insightful essays with people involved in the project or with deep experience of the carceral state, Poor has done an outstanding job in bringing a picture of depth, nuance, deep empathy, and hope to the experience of the imprisoned men of San Quentin.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Was so excited to get it for Christmas. Some of the mapped photos I’d seen in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum at the “The San Quentin Project: Nigel Poot and the Men of San Quentin State Prison” – which was very neat, but I’m glad to have them to view anytime.

Really seeing the people in the photos, with the help of these incarcerated men, was such an insightful joy. I loved seeing Monta Kevin Tindall’s mapped images - when I saw his handwriting, I was excited for more of his insight.

And the interview with Ruben Ramirez! Dang, it was just wonderful to read.

100% worth buying this book, if you’re going to put your heart in it.