Although the title, Maximum Security Democracy is somewhat overarching, this project began with a fairly specific intent: to focus on the US prison industry and to highlight some of the struggles of those opposing it with a series of artists’ posters designed for a variety of uses. The series serves to foreground some of the issues central to the construction of crime and punishment at a time when these issues are deliberately dismissed in the frenzied expansion of the criminal justice system. The posters also elaborate a definition of maximum security democracy, a structure of systems which maintain elaborate security (physical, financial, political, etc.) for some through the repression, both direct and subtle, of others.

While there are obvious shortcomings and omissions in the series (i.e., no work from prisoner artists, no work about control units, medical neglect, HIV, corrections officers violence, visitation rights, the death penalty, alternatives to incarceration, treating youths as adults, and so on), we plan to continue with this work in different formats, expanding the range of concerns to further explore the prison-industrial complex and, more importantly, to focus on the work of people fighting it. Part of our intent is to produce materials that are useful to activists, and also in some way about resistance. As we continue, then, we encourage more activists to become involved in the preliminary discussions and in directly collaborating with artists. This involvement will contribute to decisions about both form and content, making our projects more effective in political context.

But at the same time, these works are not for activists only. We are interested in producing critical, political art that is accessible to anyone, and that examines issues without resorting to oversimplification. We want to put out works that are sharp and funny and engaging and politically challenging, and avoid those which once again combine a slogan with an image from the lefty stockpile (the clenched fist, the dove, the stripes of a flag turned into prison bars, people at a rally, etc.). These posters, the third project of resistant strains, are another step in this direction. We hope the images and words, if not explicitly about resistances to maximum security democracy, encourage, support, and contribute to these resistances.

– D. Thorne for resistant strains

For ordering information and/or more info on resistant strains, email vters4nica@igc.org.

There are more than a dozen posters on exibit at: http:www.prisonactivist.org/resistant-strains