Victoria Law

@victorialaw

Freelance journalist & author. Latest book: CORRIDORS OF CONTAGION: How the Pandemic Exposed the Cruelties of Incarceration (Haymarket, 2024).

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Victoria Law@victorialaw· 17d

Sending (beaded ) positive energy your way!

Detail of a beaded square of a worn-like figure with a round blue head and big eyes on a quilt made of beads at the National museum of Mexican Art in Chicago

Victoria Law@victorialaw· 21d

Congratulations to you both!

Red, white & gold dragon standing next to a smaller black & red Chinese lion on a snowy NYC street on Lunar New Year

Victoria Law@victorialaw· 23d

So one person getting infected means the whole pod gets infected. For example, if an employee of an officer gets infected from the outside, brings it in & deals with the detainees, then the detainee gets infected. It spreads like wildfire. In January, I told the nursing staff I was scared that I have COVID, and they said that our quarantine is the SHU, the Special Housing Unit. In other words, anybody that fears COVID infections gets threatened with solitary. So, I suffered through it and people were weirded out by how much phlegm and mucus was collecting. Others had it worse than me.

Victoria Law@victorialaw· 28d

Know Your Shitty Federal Book-Banning Bils (with 3 overlapping circles & a wasp):
HR8705: named for Charlie Kirk, mandtes teaching US history
HR7661: will ban undefined "sexual oriented materials" Whatever THAT Means
HR2616: will force teachers to out trans & nonbinary students

Overlapping circle text reads:
*wil ban books (3x)
*Transphobic BS

In right corner: "Authors Against Book Bans"

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jul 9

Hooray!!

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jul 3

For years, you could see the bright blue rooftop exercise cage from the High Line. It faded over the years but was still visible if you knew to look for it. And then, one day, it was gone.

Bright blue exercise cage on a prison roof

Inside of the bright blue prison rooftop exercise cage

Former prison building without an exercise cage

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jul 3

(Trying again): Before it was a prison, the building was a sailors’ YMCA replete with art deco & a swimming pool (which the prison used for storage). Incarcerated women never got to see the art deco part—many didn’t know it existed till I showed them photos.

Plywood trap door leading to bottom of swimming pool

Bottom of swimming pool with abandoned boxes & shelves

Art deco adorning the walls of what was once a swimming pool

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jul 3

Shuttered NYC women’s prison Bayview Correctional Facility to be transformed into affordable & supportive housing www.governor.ny.gov/news/governo...

View of cell door in solitary confinement unit

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jun 30

Congratulations!

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jun 30

Hope you feel better! Sending you some virtual noodle soup. (Let me know if you’d like some real soup)

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jun 29

Painting that says “La Llorona vs La Migra” with a zig zag across the middle. On one side is a depiction of an ICE agent looking scared. On the other is a skeletal La Llorona with her mouth open as if screaming. In the bottom left is a portrait of 3 skeleton women

Placard that says:
Pamela Enriquez-Courts
B 1960, California
La Llorona v La Migra,
2019
Acrylic on canvas, acrilico sobre lienzo
NMMA (National museum of Mexican Art) permanent collection,2020, gift of the artist

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jun 24

Screenshot from the NY TIMES election coverage that says:

When asked what he was looking forward to doing first after his election, Brad Lander shared his plans for Wednesday morning: court watching at 26 Federal Plaza during immigration hearings. Lander said he planned to carry that mission forward to Washington.

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jun 15

Exciting! And congratulations!!

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Jun 5

Congratulations!!

Victoria Law@victorialaw· May 29

Zines from @midwestbooks2p.bsky.social at the #BridgingTheGap conference

Array of zines about incarceration (and resistance)

Victoria Law@victorialaw· May 29

Congratulations!!

Victoria Law@victorialaw· May 29

From Chicago’s Public Housing Museum: Darkroom in 1929 public housing closet (Jane Addams House). The mom let her teen son set up the darkroom so long as she could keep her linens in that closet! He offered to develop film & print 2 images from each negative for 30 cents!

Very narrow closet with red lightbulb, clothesline of small photos, shelves with developing chemicals and supplies, and kitchen/bedroom linens.

Victoria Law@victorialaw· May 27

Thrilled to be at the new @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social space with @mayaschenwar.bsky.social @alwaysstevie.bsky.social & Ana Navarro!

Bookstore with several books on the table and a board that says:
Upcoming events
5/27 Corridors of Contagion
Victoria Law & more

Victoria Law@victorialaw· May 15

SFO has a small exhibit on women in Afrofuturism. Sent a few photos to an incarcerated artist. She wrote: “These photos are going to be a hit. My cellie already stole the one of the Black woman surrounded by flowers. I’m excited to share (& keep the Uhura one forever). They’re happiness.”

Paintings of Black women,
including Alice Coltrane and Nichell Nichols)

Painting of Black woman in pastel swirls surrounded by pastel flower pattern

Poster that says WOMEN OF AFROFUTURISM with portrait of a Black woman wearing a space age like costume

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 29

Whoo hoo!! (Yes, I know this is a bookstore, not a library, but it’s the closest celebratory photo I got)

Lion dancers entering a bookstore during Chinese new year

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 24

Including this week's #bloomscrolling collage in e-messages to people in prison

Four photos. Clockwise from top left: redbud (trees covered in purple blooms) & green leafy trees against a blue sky with white clouds; cherry blossom trees with a lawn covered in pink cherry blossom petals; redbud tree: thin tree covered in purplish pink small flowers; low foot bridge with purple blossoms hanging off it.

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 24

Congratulations!!

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 21

Late night #bloomscrolling has informed me that, contrary to what I believed for years, this is an eastern redbud, not a cherry blossom

Tree whose thin branches are covered in tiny purple blossoms

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 20

Oh no! Sending a Women in Afro Futurism image (from SFO) to balance the nonsense

Very colorful painting/print of Black woman wearing colorful headband & colorful top surrounded by equally colorful background

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 18

Anyone know what these Bay Area flowers are? #bloomsvrolling #flowers

Flower with red petals outlined in white and very long pistils (also dead with yellow tips)

flower with black lines marking white petals. Every other white petal g has a yellow line in its center. There’s a lavender pistil(?) in the center of the flower.

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 15

Afternoon writing office

Garden with Pink blossomed trees (cherry blossoms? Redbuds?), tulips & an overturned log

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 15

Sent photos from MOMA's Wifredo Lam exhibit & Chinatown lion dances to woman in PA prison. She wrote, "[at work] everyone descended on the pictures. I summarized the wikipedia article [about Lam, which I included] & everyone seemed pretty happy to see something different. Spread the art!"

Collage: Top L: painted Chinese fan, Top R: black & gold lion dance on a sidewalk; Bottom R: purple & yellow lion dancer on a platform; bottom L: black, gold & red oil painting entitled "Night" by Wifredo Lam (which looks like a lion dance to me)

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 8

E-message from incarcerated woman serving life w/o parole: "i love seeing the outside world. u have given me a page out of your world, so thank u." (I sent her a photo collage of NYC cherry blossoms)

3 photos of NYC cherry blossoms in bloom. Top photo: Cherry blossoms along a lake (which reflects the cherry blossom trees). Bottom (L to R): a cherry blossom tree reaching towards the sky, a very pink cherry blossom tree against a NYC building

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Apr 1

If you're in the South Bay area, I'll be at Stanford on Tues, 4/7, at 5 pm with Kelly Savage (CA Coalition for Women Prisoners/Drop LWOP) & Woods Ervine (@criticalresistance.bsky.social). RSVP at bit.ly/corridorsofcontagion

Green flier that says CORRIDORS OF CONTAGION: THE PANDEMIC BEHIND BARS & ORGANIZING TO FREE PEOPLE
Tues, April 7, 5 pm Levinthal Hall, Stanford Humanities Center & zoom
RSVP @ bit.ly/corridorsofcontagion
Join author Victoria Law (Corridors of Contagion: How the Pandemic Exposed the Cruelties of Incarceration), Kelly Savage (Drop LWOP/California Coalition for Women Prisoners) & Woods Ervin (Critical Resistance) for a panel discussion about the horrors of the pandemic behind bars & grassroots freedom organizing.
And then b&w photos of each person

Victoria Law@victorialaw· Mar 31

Bay Area!! Monday, 4/6, 7pm: I’ll be at Medicine for Nightmares with Kelly Savage (CA Coalition for Women Prisoners/Drop LWOP, Woods Ervine (@criticalresistance.bsky.social) & others for a book launch & discussion about the pandemic behind bars, solidarity & survival