"Voices of Eastern State" Audio Tour

With this state–of–the–art audio tour, the long-abandoned cellblocks come alive with the sounds of daily life inside the ancient prison.

"If Reform is Possible...
          ...It Will Happen Here"
The Worldwide Influence of the Eastern State Penitentiary

Linda Brenner: Ghost Cats

Thirty-nine sculptures represent the colony of cats that took up residence in the prison grounds after the penitentiary closed in 1971.

Dayton Castleman: The End of the Tunnel

Hundreds of feet of two-inch steel pipe trace paths in and around Eastern State's original seven cellblocks like giant red lines representing imagined escape routes.

William Cromar: GTMO

A materially and dimensionally accurate representation of one cell from the now abandoned Camp X-Ray at GTMO (military abbreviation for the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) is inserted inside of a now-abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary cell.

Michael Grothusen: midway of another day

This sculpture functions as a combination clock, calendar and addresses the slow, almost still, passing of time which was experienced by many inmates.

Susan Hagen: Recollection Tableaux

A series of miniature dioramas in Cellblock 7 show - accurately and poetically - the daily lives of prisoners at Eastern State throughout its history.

Alexa Hoyer: I always wanted to go to Paris, France

Using three televisions to screen excerpts from over seven decades of prison film history, this installation challenges visitors to re-examine their notion of prison life.

Johanna Inman and Anna Norton: Living Space

This series of five videos of time-lapse photographs featuring the subtle changes in light and weather that occur at Eastern State Penitentiary. The locations chosen for the videos represent areas and architectural features common to the site, each with distinctive characteristics created by the structure itself as well as the effects of time.

Lisa Reddig: Waiting at ESP

The artist has constructed a pinhole camera from an inexpensive cardboard model of Eastern State’s Administration Building, and used it to document the cells of Cellblock 11 (built in 1894, not currently open to the public).

Matthew and Jonathan Stemler: Juxtaposition

This installation gives new life to fallen material by dividing the cell horizontally with suspended plaster pieces. It provides an area in which to consider the building’s past and present experience in light of material position.

Judy Taylor: my glass house

Black and white, glass-plate photographs showing specimens of the natural habitat found within Eastern State's walls replace missing windowpanes in the penitentiary greenhouse.