An unrealized project for Eastern State Penitentiary.
Concept was supported by ESP research and development grant.
Full proposal here.
Abstract:
GROWING PAINS: The Profit/Penalty Paradox in US Marijuana Legislation Today
Overview: Eastern State Penitentiary’s historic greenhouse transforms into a growing site for industrial hemp, with factual decals about marijiuana legislation problematics affixed to the window panes
Artist: Kaitlin Pomerantz
Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Greenhouse
Installation Cycle 2020*
Physical Project Description
Teeming trays of live industrial hemp plants will be installed in Eastern State’s historic greenhouse. Beginning as seedlings and then growing into their adult forms, the plants will be visible through the glass, their iconic morphology immediately identifiable as cannabis. Simple verbal decals will be installed on the windows listing facts and figures around legalization efforts and profits, statistics about continued incarceration and penalization for marijuana-related crimes, and updates in decarceration and expungement. This information, hovering on the glass surface through which a thicket of marijuana grows, will point at power, hypocrisy, inequity, and progress in the legislation surrounding this plant.
Conceptual Narrative
"The failed War on Drugs has locked up millions of nonviolent drug offenders — especially for marijuana-related offenses — at an incredible cost of lost human potential, torn-apart families and communities, and taxpayer dollars.” - Senator Cory Booker
“Legal marijuana was a $10.4 billion industry in the U.S. in 2018 with a quarter-million jobs devoted just to the handling of marijuana plants.” - Beau Whitney, vice president at New Frontier Data, a leading cannabis market research and data analysis firm
There is a glaring paradox between the profits earned by (largely white, male) entrepreneurs and investors partaking in the multi-billion dollar legal marijuana industry, and the sentences that continued to be earned by those charged with possession, sale and use (who are predominantly young, male, people of color). The simultaneity of legalization/big marijuana business and continued incarceration/criminal charges is sorely in need of attention. Many leading politicians are shedding light on this issue, and several states have already begun to decriminalize, decarcerate, and expunge (with Pennsylvania’s own district attorney, Larry Krasner, a vocal advocate in this domain). This said, there still remain growing pains within new legislation that translate to literal pain, disenfranchisement, and the destruction and derailment of lives-- disproportionately those of POCs. This project brings attention to this pressing paradox in a way that is straightforward, thought-provoking, non-partisan, and unexpected.