Search

Why is the rate of incarceration in Louisiana so high? How do we critique the way prisons are part of infrastructural solutions to anthropocenic instabilities? As Angela Davis writes, “prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.” One way of imagining and building a vision of an anti-carceral future is practiced in the Solitary Gardens project here in New Orleans: 

The Solitary Gardens are constructed from the byproducts of sugarcane, cotton, tobacco and indigo- the largest chattel slave crops- which we grow on-site, exposing the illusion that slavery was abolished in the United States. The Solitary Gardens utilize the tools of prison abolition, permaculture, contemplative practices, and transformative justice to facilitate exchanges between persons subjected to solitary confinement and volunteer proxies on the “outside.” The beds are “gardened” by prisoners, known as Solitary Gardeners, through written exchanges, growing calendars and design templates. As the garden beds mature, the prison architecture is overpowered by plant life, proving that nature—like hope, love, and imagination—will ultimately triumph over the harm humans impose on ourselves and on the planet.

"Nature" here is constructed in a very particularistic way: as a redemptive force to harness in opposition to the wider oppressive system the architecture of a solitary confinement cell is a part of. It takes a lot of intellectual and political work to construct a counter-hegemonic nature, in other words. Gardeners in this setting strive toward a cultivation of relations antithetical to the isolationist, anti-collective sociality prisons (and in general, a society in which prisons are a permanent feature of crisis resolution) foster.

My interest in NOLA anthropocenics pivots on water, and particularly the ways in which capitalist regimes of value and waste specify, appropriate, and/or externalize forms of water. My research is concerned with water crises more generally, and geographically situated in Flint, Michigan. I thought I could best illustrate these interests with a sampling of photographs from a summer visit to NOLA back in 2017. At the time, four major confederate monuments around the city had just been taken down. For supplemental reading, I'm including an essay from political theorist Adolph Reed Jr. (who grew up in NOLA) that meditates on the long anti-racist struggle that led to this possibility, and flags the wider set of interventions that are urgently required to abolish the landscape of white supremacy. 

Flooded street after heavy rains due to failures of city pumping infrastructure.

A headline from the same week in the local press.

Some statues are gone but other monuments remain (this one is annotated).

A Starbucks in Lakeview remembering Katrina--the line signifies the height of the water at the time.

Reading:

Adolph Reed Jr., “Monumental Rubbish” https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/06/25/monumental-rubbish-statues-torn-down-what-next-new-orleans

P.S. In case the photos don't show up in the post I'm attaching them in a PDF document as well! 

This program is targeted for the people (Haitians) that wants to enter the habilitation field. For either long-term sustainability or becoming rehabilitation professionals.

Personally thinks that this design is quite innovative in the way of applying existing design structure and mechanic to form new designs for the greater use such as building temporary bridges.

The object focused in this epidemiological study is the incarcerated group. Whereas the study has focused on the reason why certain group of people incarcerated and therefore increase the amount of drug uses and decrease the health quality. The formation of the incarcerated community has spotted on analyzing few areas that include human races, relevant family incomes and the facilities with health care in both prisons and jails.  

At the end of the film, the need of more medical centers are suggested as in some of the countries there is no medical center to serve a whole country. Due to the lack of medical center, medical operation cannot be hold long in the area with the overwhelming populations. By sending short-term temporary medical service from foreign countries would not solve the problem at once, as the populations would get some kind of disease overtime. By building more medical centers, medical supplies would maintain in a constant rate so the emergency responders do not have to make decisions based on the supplies left.  

User data are translated into patient’s profiles, session history and tracked progress.

The event called in this report is the Fukushima nuclear accident – 2011 great East‐Japan  earthquake and tsunami. It focuses on the effects of the radiation hazards to a wide range of  populations,  which  includes  the  analyse  on  human  health/risks  and  the  surrounding  environments (ecosystems).

Most of the partners of the platform (world leading foundations/organisations: e.g. Resilience Network Initiative) have used the tools to increase the access on relevant information in order to assist the citizens/populations that need helps. Furthermore, to protect marginalised communities.

“Anyone can use Ushahidi, but traditionally it has been a tool used by Crisis Responders, Human Rights Reporters, and Citizens & Governments (such as election monitoring or corruption reporters).”

The article has reveal the trust issue (crisis) dealing between the local publics and the health department workers on the spread of Ebola (and anyone that assist with the work of spreading the awareness of Ebola). This issue is revealed via the several violence acts happened in the area. These cases are reported with briefs of scenes and relevant data.