Is a public art project based around prison reforms in the United States. Currently there are 2,298,300 people incarcerated in the United States. This equates to 0.7% of the US population, and 22% of the world's prison population. At a cost of roughly 74 billion dollars a year.
You could also look at it as 2,298,300 people that most likely won’t have a chance to invent a cure for cancer, become the first woman to walk on the surface of Mars, or save your life from a fire, due to the lack of actual rehabilitation in our prison system. Human lives that we sadly discard like chewed up pieces of gum onto the the sidewalk, leaving just a stain that occasionally becomes a nuisance because it might stick to the bottom of our shoes. Forgotten, walked on, and stripped of all their rights. Something no truly compassionate society wants.
My proposal represents the discarded human resource and points towards the hope of a beautiful future and change, in which we as a society work to educate, and supports our forgotten. I challenge the pedestrian to look down and to think of the lost potential of our most important resource. Life.
I am asking for your approval to transform our city sidewalks into a vision of hope by allowing me to replace the discarded, walked on, and forgotten gum on our city streets into gems of potential. Each unique piece representing a prisoner. Using the traditional craft of flameworking, I plan to create thousands of unique glass pieces to replace the gum, and embed them into our sidewalks. A representation of a our forgotten, transforming what could be considered eyesores or overlooked stains we pass by everyday, into something beautiful, depicting hope, positive change, and new beginnings.
ARTIST RENDERING OF FUTURE INSTALLATION