Maria Haymandou’s latest blog post
Out in the Brooklyn neighborhood Bushwick, an artist, Miao Jiaxin, just took his studio and turned it into a “jail cell”, complete with a bed, sink, toilet and 24-hour surveillance. Anybody who wants to can rent the apartment for $1 a day is totally free to. Jiaxin, who is originally from China, arrived in New York City in 2006, not knowing anybody and feeling extremely alienated. According to him, this jail installation is a “social experiment” meant to give people a sense of what it’s like to be a newly arrived immigrant in the United States like him.
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A look at the jail cell inside Jiaxin’s studio.
For the project, Jiaxin converted his studio on Van Buren Street into a jail cell, 6-by-8 at 6 feet tall. The cell is available for bookings, however, occupants must agree to remain in the cage for at least three hours every morning. They are also not allowed to sleep, write, exercise, surf the Internet, read or make any crafts. Some other requirements include a $300 deposit and a minimum stay of two days or a maximum of five. Jiaxin plans on renting the studio-jail-cell out to various enterprising people for one year.
That room, according to Jiaxin, is his studio, where he’s supposed to work. However, he’s a performance artist, and doesn’t really need to have a big space to make objects like many other artists, who use their studios to paint or sculpt. Therefore, he’s going to use it to think and sit with other people. It isn’t yet clear as to when this is going to start.
Although America was a nation founded by immigrants, that’s a fact that many Americans, some of them even the grandchildren of foreigners, tend to forget. Even the Native Americans are descended from immigrants (their own ancestors arrived in this continent from Siberia some 15,000 years ago). Therefore, it’s essential that all Americans understand and appreciate our country’s immigrant past. This is what makes this art installation so interesting. I’m eager to hear what participants have to say about it.
Maria Haymandou 