Sterling Ruby Profiled in AnOther Magazine

Sterling Ruby (BFA 2002) was recently profiled in AnOther Magazine for his show DAMNATION, "a powerful exposure of America’s system of incarceration," says the publication. The project is a result of five years of study and observation and includes years of aerial footage of California's adult prisons through a single-channel video projection titled STATE. "Sweeping over the state’s deserts, farmland and rural landscapes via helicopter, the film shows prisons emerging like ruins of ancient kingdoms or glimmers of future civilisations in a powerful exposure of America’s endless system of incarceration," reports AnOther.

The artist discussed the project with architecture critic and curator Mimi Zeiger. "But for this project, the abstraction of making art out of painful, real-life things didn’t sit as well with me. I think this project—the aerial shots, quite literally—distanced it from the individual, so it had to be more about the architecture, the objecthood, of these places," says Ruby of STATE. In the interview, Ruby also recalled working at SAIC's Video Data Bank, and says "it was an amazing education for me, because up to that point I had never really thought about video as art." Read the full story on AnOther's website.