The Penitentiary

22/06/2015

Spotted at the Venice Biennale!

12/04/2015

http://the-penitentiary.com/blog/2015/4/7/the-battery-project-in-retrospect-screening-premiere

Check out our blog post about the premiere screening of 'The Battery Project : In Retrospect!'

After months, and weeks, and days, and countless sleepless hours, we finally held the premiere screening of 'The Battery Project: In Retrospect,' at Union Docs in Brooklyn, NY, and it was a great success! Everyone who attended reacted very positively to the film, commenting on the thorough and fasci…

07/04/2015

02/04/2015

HOLY SH*TE this is tomorrow! We're just at the breach of capacity sooo if you want to come head over to the-penitentiary.com/tickets and buy your tickets ***now*** !!
Tickets will NOT BE SOLD AT THE DOOR.

A reminder of the venue address:
UnionDocs
322 Union Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11211
(Just a few stops on the L train)

Doors open at 7:30 for drinks and snacks, screening starts at 8!

We're excited to see you there :D!

The Penitentiary is a collaborative site-specific art exhibition to take place in abandoned war-era prisons throughout Eastern Europe.

23/03/2015

Got a lot of new footage this weekend!

14/03/2015

Good evening everyone,

Check out this teaser from our documentary!

10/03/2015

We'd like to invite you to the premiere screening of The Battery Project : In Retrospect rescheduled to Friday, April 3rd at UnionDocs in Brooklyn, NY!

From early phases of conceptualization and development, to on-site production, the documentary will feature Kickstarter recounts, in-depth interviews with both artists, full exhibition coverage, plenty of on-site footage, and a look into the challenges - including installation troubleshooting, theft and cultural inconsistencies we faced, as well as the community support (shout out to you!), unexpected events, and serendipitous moments that contributed to the Battery Project's great success.

Doors will open at 7:30 pm, and you are welcome to enjoy some refreshments before the documentary begins promptly at 8pm. A Q&A session with the filmmaker, artists able to attend, and us, of course, will follow the screening.

Space is limited, so purchase your tickets today at www.the-penitentiary.com/tickets. Looking forward to seeing your faces!

25/02/2015

http://the-penitentiary.com/blog/2015/2/24/the-battery-project-in-retrospect-coming-soon

Check out our latest blog post about our weekend adventure to Maine and our upcoming documentary screening!

Hello everyone! Marina and I have been working on a documentary in retrospect of the The Battery Project, and spent this past weekend with Nick Noyes, our good friend and wonderful filmmaker. We drove all the way up to the beautiful, cold town of Norway, Maine, and although we may have gotten stuck…

21/02/2015

We're in Norway, Maine where the snow reaches above our heads attempting to bust out the final scenes of The Battery Project : In Retrospect but not without IPAs (for later) and local donuts (for now)

05/02/2015

We're super excited to attend the opening of Prison Obscura and curator's talk with Pete Brooks tonight at Parsons The New School for Design. Editor of prisonphotography.org, Pete Brooks runs a comprehensive online database with coverage of anything and everything to deal with incarceration and social justice through art making. His website has been one of, if not the most vital resource for us since day one, and we're super lucky he's come to New York!

"Presenting rarely seen vernacular, surveillance, evidentiary, and prisoner-made photographs, the exhibition sheds light on the prison industrial complex and those it confines."

"At The New School, Prison Obscura connects to Humanities Action Lab (HAL) Global Dialogues on Incarceration, an interdisciplinary hub that brings together a range of university-wide, national, and global partnerships to foster public engagement on America’s prison system."

http://exhibits.haverford.edu/prisonobscura/

Curated by Pete Brook

25/01/2015

Eastern State Penitentiary is an abandoned prison in Philadelphia. We discovered it a while ago after finding out about their ongoing art program which accepts yearly proposals for art exhibitions to take place within the prison. At the time, we were all systems go with The Battery Project, but kept Eastern State Penitentiary in our peripheral. As things wind down and we begin to look ahead towards our next international project, we've been exploring ways to keep the gears moving in the meantime. With the abandoned aspect, interesting history, arts program already in place and proximity to home, Eastern State Penitentiary sounds like a no brainer.
We took a trip down there today to shoot some photos, wander around and see what would come of it. Here's a few from our self-guided audio tour. (Toto, we're not at Patarei anymore...)

22/01/2015

This month officially marked one whole year since we met our Kickstarter goal and funded The Battery Project from scratch.

From Kickstarter we had no idea what to expect. In fact, we didn't even know what to expect when we began sharing the idea for our project. Somewhat to our surprise, the feedback was insanely positive and gave us the courage we needed to launch our campaign using a method we weren't sure if we could trust. It turned out that we could, but there was no "it" without the people behind us.

For over a year, maybe closer to two, we worked night and day to make this project what it was in Tallinn, and what it continues to be now. We knew it ourselves, and were often reminded by others of the perhaps overly-ambitious concept and goal. However, instead of scaring us, it was alluring. We shot high, put everything on the line, and dived in. Somehow we knew it'd pan out, but there's no way to describe what it felt like to scroll through a list of 100+ people who knew it as well, and were willing to be proactive in making it happen. Old friends, new friends, family, people with who we've fallen out of touch, that we met once at a party, at bars, past teachers, co-workers, friends of friends, family of friends, parents of acquaintances, strangers from across the world, it spirals on...so many people came out of the woodwork for us, the sense of closeness and support is still overwhelming.

So, as we've said a thousand times before, thank you. Seriously, thank you for your $1. For your words of encouragement, for following and promoting us on social media and spreading the word to others. Thank you for giving us whatever you thought we deserved, because you were right. Thank you for the opportunity to challenge ourselves, to learn, to embrace uncertainty, to see it through.

We still have more to show, so stay tuned.