Personal Project
Surviving Solitary is a collaboration that documents the personal effects of Angola 3 member, Herman Wallace gathered during 42 years of solitary confinement.
Surviving Solitary is a collaboration between artist Maria Hinds, photographer Matthew Thompson, and the now deceased Herman Wallace. Contributors include Marc Perry, Anthropologist; Shareef Cousin, Death Row exoneree; Albert Woodfox, Angola 3 member and other formerly incarcerated people.
Concept: Maria Hinds | Photography: Matthew Thompson
Art direction/Print/Web/Social/Lectures
From state-issued clothing, drawings, and documents to handmade objects, these items testify to Herman’s strength and ingenuity during decades in Louisiana’s harshly punitive prisons. Modified and repurposed, they became tools of survival—navigating, circumventing, and subverting prison regulations—while also serving as vessels for memory, self-identity, and creativity.
Surviving Solitary photography has been exhibited in galleries in New Orleans, Dublin and Paris, and presented in universities throughout Louisiana. Select artifacts comprise the ‘Herman Wallace Archival Collection’ at National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian, while others are currently on display at the Photo Voices exhibit at Southern University at New Orleans.
Memory Map
During visits Herman often enjoyed recounting the order of the streets in his 13th Ward neighborhood. He drew the adjacent map from memory, highlighting the house where he was born, a home he purchased, a barbershop, bars, grocery stores and churches.
As an extension of documenting Hermans belongings, Matthew and I photographed the locations highlighted on the map, many of which no longer exist or have changed over the decades.
Map drawing courtesy of Ashley Wennerstrom.
History
Herman Wallace was framed along with fellow Angola 3 members Albert Woodfox and Robert King for murders that took place within Angola prison while serving their sentences. Having spent over 42 years in solitary confinement Herman’s conviction was finally overturned and he was released on Oct 4th, 2013. He died a free man 3 days later. While imprisoned Herman became a black panther, human rights activist and a political prisoner celebrated for his organizing techniques that unified the Angola prison population who mobilized against the abusive conditions on the former plantation.
Visit Angola3.org for detailed information.
‘It really required a strong will to endure the torturous experience inside the chambers of solitary confinement, and what I’m trying to have you understand is that both the state and federal judges are knowledgeable of these illegal torture chambers and yet allow them to exist.’
– Herman Wallace
