my name is Lavar Monroe I'm an artist in
area 919 I was never in prison but I
know a lot of people who have been in
prison I've always had an interest for
that space I did a lot of research on it
so I'm sourcing from documentaries I'm
starting from readings both about the
prison but also about notions of
survival notions of heroism the hero
with the hero means that I was
interested in making these pink objects
that were in many ways Pollock and in
many ways spoke about the homoerotic
space within the prison for me the
prison became the epitome of the hero's
journey and in that sense I began
thinking and researching writings of
Joseph Campbell who was an
anthropologist one instance of that
journey was the belly of the beast and
for me the person became that place and
with those torrents I was also
interested in the idea of the
celebratory nature of the after prison
experience and with that I was thinking
about in many park last societies or
there is many people who go through the
prison tenure when they come out they
are celebrated all these drones come
from objects so the first thing that is
made is the actual shank and the shank
for me serves nearly like a still life
and I would draw from that or while I
draw from that I would also make it
nelly educational so a lot of the
writings kind of tell you how these
objects are made and another element of
the writing is a narrative Adam like it
kind of speaks about the menacing
ability of such an object so there's a
lot of horror text juxtaposed with humor
i'm using my daughter's band-aids i'm
using her stickers i'm using staples i'm
using thread and needles they are all
very playful and you wouldn't think
about it as nothing bigger than that i'm
sewing i'm thinking about the stitch
when somebody stop the stitch together
i'm thinking about the staples it's a
really bad really really bad injury so
we have to staple it together I'm
thinking about that I'm cutting the
paper so I'm thinking about the cut off
the blade