Mel Chin's 'Actual Size' billboard
The United States already has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and Texas is home to the largest prison population in the country, with Houston’s Harris County jail holding approximately 8,000 people on any given day — the majority of whom are legally innocent, unable to pay the cost of bail, and stuck inside awaiting trial. Activists and lawmakers both red and blue have expressed alarm about the abuse of human rights inside of prisons, as well as the inordinate amount of state and federal spending required to keep prisons staffed as the number of people incarcerated post-pandemic increases.
Trenton Doyle Hancock's billboard
Billboard by McKenna Gessner
On Nov. 4, the non-profit arts organization Art At A Time Like This will launch 8x5 Houston, a public art endeavor designed to bring attention to prison reform by displaying commissioned artworks by 10 artists on billboards and mobile billboard trucks throughout the city. (Eight feet by five feet is the size of the average prison cell.) The participating Houston-based artists include Mel Chin, McKenna Gessner, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and Chandrika Metivier. Faylita Hicks, Monti Hill, Kill Joy, Jared Owens, Jenny Polak, and El Rebo also contributed to the project.
To provide an outlet for community dialogue about prison reform, 8x5 Houston will hold a panel discussion at the Houston Museum of African American Culture on Nov. 4 at 2pm, moderated by HMAAC’s chief curator Christopher Blay. The speakers include Faylita Hicks; Houston artist Ronald Lewellyn Jones; Harris County Project Attorney at the Texas Center for Justice and Equity Jay Jenkins; and Houston-born actor and activist Kendrick Sampson, who starred in the HBO series Insecure and collaborated with JusticeLA to create a public service announcement about the health of inmates in Los Angeles County jails during the Covid-19 pandemic.
8x5 Houston will be on view on a billboard near you through Nov. 30.
'The Aquarius Tunnel' (photo by Raul Casares)
The art installation received the 2023 CODAawards People’s Choice award, which celebrates projects, individuals, and creative teams who creatively and successfully integrate commissioned art into interior, architectural, or public spaces.
Created by Mumbai-born, Houston-based artist Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee and commissioned by Houston Airports, the stunning, site-specific and scientifically accurate Aquarius Tunnel includes a floor-to-ceiling mural, lenticular lenses, filtered lighting, custom carpeting, an original soundtrack, and an augmented reality feature that allows travelers to interact with the tunnel on social media. In an earlier feature about Folmsbee and the project, we described the tunnel as emulating the experience of an ocean dive (Folmsbee is a skilled scuba diver), and a celebration of Houston as an interconnected, global community. “It is an honor to be amongst these gifted individuals and to have been congratulated and celebrated in person amongst the world leaders in public art,” said Folmsbee in a statement.
The recognition is significant for Folmsbee, who has created several large fine-art murals throughout Houston, as the CODAawards received a record-breaking 411 entries for this year’s competition, from 24 different countries and representing over $54 million in commissions. Earlier this month, Folmsbee, her sister and architectural collaborator Shruti Mahimtura, and fellow artist Alton Du Laney, who, as the curator of art for Houston's three airports, has brought national attention to the city, traveled to San Jose, Calif., to receive the award. Folmsbee and her team were the only winners from Texas among the international group of awardees. Du Laney proudly told Scuba News, “Now the world’s best airport art program officially has the world’s best public arts project.” The Aquarius Tunnel received more than 20 percent of the total votes cast, the most votes of any artwork in the history of the award.
As a self-described “global marine conservation artist,” Folmsbee keeps busy in between commissions by collaborating with marine organizations that endeavor to preserve our oceans. More about Folmsbee and her projects can be found on her website.
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