Section / Faces (2014-2024)

These are institutional portraits (Anosova managed to get them in 2014) that were taken, printed, and sewn onto the clothes of convicts for identification purposes. The prison administration conducts this procedure on the first day of an individual’s arrival at the jail.
For Anosova, these images, which remain unchanged over the years, serve as intimate time capsules displayed publicly. The absence of an identification card on a convict’s chest, along with any other infractions, results in punitive consequences. These actions are governed by strict control at both macro-social levels through constantly updated laws, regulations, and decrees by local authorities, and at micro-social levels through a complex system of unwritten rules and unspoken protocols. In both scenarios, a wide array of tools with varying degrees of severity are employed — ranging from solitary confinement and reduced chances of parole to physical and emotional abuse. As time passes, the portraits deteriorate, fade, bear scars, and deform.
By utilizing various physical effects on prints sourced from a sealed archive (comprising over 200 photographs taken by the colony administration on the convicts' first day, with permission from the depicted women), Anosova manipulates a collection of portraits to symbolize the distortions that manifest within a closed institution.

Work in progress 2014-2024