Attempted Circumnavigation of Rikers Island (New York, USA, 2013)
Lech Szporer, Attempted Circumnavigation of Rikers Island (Polaroid #2), 2013, New York, USA, Polaroid print (limited edition)
Attempted Circumnavigation Rikers Island (New York, USA, 2013)
Rikers Island can be seen as a symbol for the prison industrial complex in that the entire island has been constructed and expanded precisely to incarcerate people.
During the month of September, we attempted to circumnavigate Rikers Island in a 16 foot orange canoe, setting off from a secret location in Queens we had previously staked out.
By engaging the periphery of this panoptical island via canoe, we were attempting to metaphorically envelope [isolate and circumvent] the criminal (in)justice system by drawing an aesthetic ‘line of flight’ around the island itself. The circumnavigation was therefore an attempt to allegorically lay siege to the complex.
However, while attempting to circumnavigate the complex, we were spotted by the Port Authority and picked up by the Coast Guard and NYPD Harbor Unit, interrogated by the FBI and JTTF, and ultimately given a Notice of Violation for breaching the LaGuardia Security Zone in Flushing Bay, New York.
Lech Szporer, Enhanced Aerial Photo Of Rikers Island Jail Complex, Flushing Bay (in the bottom right corner you can see the LaGuardia Airport runway)
Lech Szporer/Matthew Blair, Attempted Circumnavigation of Rikers Island (NYPD Harbor Unit detainment), 2013, New York, USA, photographic print (limited edition)
Rikers Island Drawings
Rikers Island has fascinated me for years as a floating jail or prison island, as a place of violence and mismanagement, anger and sadness. In many ways, prisons are scandalous symptoms of a society’s neglect of certain demographics of people and a refusal to address the critical social issues at the root of criminality, namely poverty, mental health, substance abuse, to name to most apparent.
Over the years, through historical and on-the-ground research, I have been examining Rikers Island from both a scientific and artistic perspective. I have also been examining the architecture and urban planning of prisons to develop cartographic drawings and inks.
Lech Szporer, Rikers Island, 2013, New York, USA, 11” x 14”, pen and ink drawing
Lech Szporer, Rikers Island, 2013, New York, USA, 11” x 14”, pen and ink drawing
Lech Szporer, Rikers Island, 2013, New York, USA, 11” x 14”, pen and ink drawing
Lech Szporer, Rikers Island With Hidden Gun, New York, 2017, 11” x 14”, pen and ink drawing
Lech Szporer, Rikers Island, 2013, New York, USA, 11” x 14”, pen and ink drawing
Lech Szporer, Rikers Island Correctional Facility With Hidden American Flag, New York, 2017, 11” x 14”, pen and ink drawing
Rikers Island Inks
Below is a series of 12 (11” x 14”) ink drawings of Rikers Island from a bird’s eye view. What continually fascinates me about islands, and Rikers Island in particular, is how egg-like they are in shape and in the sense that they can be impregnated, as though humans and animals that inhabit and colonize islands are similar to sperm entering and transforming a female egg.
Acknowledgments: This project was done in collaboration with Matthew Blair.