Eastern State Penitentiary: Fossils
Date: 1993
Commissioned by the Eastern State Penitentiary, this installation addresses the nation’s first solitary-confinement prison. Conceived by the Quakers as an attempt to isolate prisoners from each other’s negative influences, this scheme essentially buried prisoners alive in small, windowless rooms with only a mail-slot through which they received their meals. The dates represent one prisoner’s sentence; “larceny” his possible crime.
