Victoria Law
@victorialaw
Freelance journalist & author. Latest book: CORRIDORS OF CONTAGION: How the Pandemic Exposed the Cruelties of Incarceration (Haymarket, 2024).
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.
(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.
Shuttered NYC women’s prison Bayview Correctional Facility to be transformed into affordable & supportive housing www.governor.ny.gov/news/governo...
Hope you feel better! Sending you some virtual noodle soup. (Let me know if you’d like some real soup)
Zines from @midwestbooks2p.bsky.social at the #BridgingTheGap conference
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!
Thrilled to be at the new @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social space with @mayaschenwar.bsky.social @alwaysstevie.bsky.social & Ana Navarro!
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.”
Whoo hoo!! (Yes, I know this is a bookstore, not a library, but it’s the closest celebratory photo I got)
Including this week's #bloomscrolling collage in e-messages to people in prison
Late night #bloomscrolling has informed me that, contrary to what I believed for years, this is an eastern redbud, not a cherry blossom
Oh no! Sending a Women in Afro Futurism image (from SFO) to balance the nonsense
Anyone know what these Bay Area flowers are? #bloomsvrolling #flowers
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!"
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)
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
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