Wall+Paper
by Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge

In the fall of 2014, artist Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge started to correspond with a group of incarcerated people serving life sentences in American prisons. In her introduction letter, she asked them if they were interested in collaborating with her via mail correspondence to create a series of images through specific questions: the descriptions of the spaces in which they live and those they are longing for and dreaming about. 

The book Wall+Paper is a collection of these exchanges on paper. By weaving together curated fragments of the letters received and the images sent, multiple voices emerge to form micro-conversations between all participants. Drawing a poetical statement and/or a map of these ambiguous institutional spaces, this project is not an attempt to ‘break’ the thick wall of the prison nor to depict the disturbing American mass incarceration statistics, it is rather an attempt to trigger curiosity from all sides, to activate spaces that are often invisible or overlooked, and to explore themes of displacement and memory.