Processing Systems: Numbers by Sherrill Roland

Processing Systems: Numbers by Sherrill Roland features artworks, works in progress, and research materials by Sherrill Roland (b. 1984, Asheville, NC) from his ongoing exploration of the criminal justice system. The works are part of a cross-disciplinary project that critically examines United States Federal and State Correctional Identification Numbers, which are assigned to inmates upon incarceration and historically have been used to reduce individuals to a series of digits. Roland, who was wrongfully incarcerated in 2013, uses this numeric system to generate artworks that follow specific rules, like the sudoku puzzles that helped him pass time while he was in prison.

Processing Systems includes a series of new, large-scale numerical portraits that are engraved in aluminum and created by combining the Correctional Identification Numbers of individuals who have been exonerated in North Carolina in recent decades. The exhibition’s central vitrine revisits Roland’s 168.800 series, sculptures that explore the oppressive facades of prisons through geometric variations of the cinder block. In this case, they appear in miniature, more like a constellation of abstract symbols that can be rearranged to convey different meanings.

Presented as the culmination of a two-year Mellon Foundation Artistic Research Initiative Fellowship at the Franklin Humanities Institute’s Social Practice Lab, the exhibition and its programming include collaborations and support from the Nasher Museum; the Office of Information Technology’s Colab & DesignHub; the Wilson Center for Science & Justice; the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies; Duke Arts; and the Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke. It is curated by Pedro Lasch, Research Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies and Director of the Social Practice Lab, and Julia McHugh, Trent A. Carmichael Director of Academic Initiatives and Curator of Arts of the Americas.

Processing Systems is made possible by Ruth (A.B.’81, P’11) and John Caccavale (A.B.’81, P’11).

Accompanying the exhibition is an installation in the Trent A. Carmichael Academic Focus Gallery, curated by Roland. It features selections from the Nasher Museum’s permanent collection that depict prison architecture and the criminal justice system throughout history. A related installation, Processing Systems: Bonding by Sherrill Roland, is also on view at the Ackland Art Museum until July 13, 2025.