Contributors
Last name: Pinkel
First Name: Sheila
Affiliation: ISAST/Leonardo
E-mail: spinkel4@gmail.com
Submission Details:
Titles: Sight Unseen: Growth of Incarceration in the United States

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Short Biography

       Sheila Pinkel is am emerita professor, Pomona College, Claremont, California, whose work makes visible the invisible in nature and in culture. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in over one hundred museum collections. She is also an international editor of Leonardo and oversees LABS (Leonardo Abstract Services), a database of MA, MFA and PhD thesis abstracts.

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Artist’s Statement​

       Since 1999, Pinkel has made artworks about various aspects of the Prison Industrial Complex. “Sight Unseen: Growth of Incarceration in the United States” is a large modular laminated digital wall work approximately 8’ x 15’ which uses the graph of the growth of incarceration in the United States from 1900 – 2010 to make visible the precipitous rise in incarceration in the U.S. since 1975. Juxtaposed above this graph are images from U.S. history which provide historic context to the graph. Included under the graph is textual information about the legal and social reasons for this precipitous growth. Accompanying the mural is an informational chart providing historic information about the images and text.