‘The Darks’
Walking and photography are often the starting points of my practice, and it was so when I discovered that Tate Britain stood on the site of the infamous Millbank Prison by listening to Ruth Ewan’s walking/audio installation The Darks commissioned by The Tate.
The prison (opened 1816) covered 16 acres of cells and yards in an octagonal shape and the regime was severe and cruel and lasted 76 years. Convicted men and women were transported to Australia and the Colonies from ships tied up on the bank of the Thames.
The Darks themselves were cells at the bottom of the building (near to where the modern day Café is situated) where there are remnants of cells existing today. These chambers had no natural light. The original design for the prison was a panopticon, a design for such a building would allow a single watchman to observe all inmates of an institution, using mirrors to see into every part of the building. It was an early form of CCTV. I used a single lens reflex camera to take a series of photographs using multiple exposures for each print. The resulting prints have come to embody those dark and frightening places.
Juliet Bankes
‘The Darks’
Walking and photography are often the starting points of my practice, and it was so when I discovered that Tate Britain stood on the site of the infamous Millbank Prison by listening to Ruth Ewan’s walking/audio installation The Darks commissioned by The Tate.
The prison (opened 1816) covered 16 acres of cells and yards in an octagonal shape and the regime was severe and cruel and lasted 76 years. Convicted men and women were transported to Australia and the Colonies from ships tied up on the bank of the Thames.
The Darks themselves were cells at the bottom of the building (near to where the modern day Café is situated) where there are remnants of cells existing today. These chambers had no natural light. The original design for the prison was a panopticon, a design for such a building would allow a single watchman to observe all inmates of an institution, using mirrors to see into every part of the building. It was an early form of CCTV. I used a single lens reflex camera to take a series of photographs using multiple exposures for each print. The resulting prints have come to embody those dark and frightening places.
