Interactive documentary puts you in solitary confinement with a Black Panther activist
- Text by Sam Warner
The harrowing 41-year solitary confinement of prisoner and activist Herman Wallace is captured in new interactive online documentary The Deeper They Bury Me: A Call from Herman Wallace.
Wallace was originally sent away to Louisiana State Penitentiary for armed robbery but was later convicted for the murder of a prison guard with fellow inmate Albert Woodfox, and along with Robert Hillary King they became known as the ‘Angola Three’.
The conviction was seen as a ruse by authorities because he was associated with the Black Panther Party and large sections of the public campaigned for his release. During his time in prison he also set out to improve conditions there and strongly resisted the brutal system.
“Anywhere I go I have to be in chains. I mean chains have become part of my existence,” Wallace says in The Deeper They Bury Me. On the website, we are invited to make a phone call to Wallace for 20-minutes – as would be the norm for inmate calls. In that time, we navigate Wallace’s cell and learn about his experience, the recordings we hear taken from phone calls between the inmate and filmmaker Angad Singh Bhalla.
The 2013 film Herman’s House made by Bhalla, was the root of this project – a documentary following artist Jackie Sumell as she conversed with Wallace about the house he would like to live in were he a free man, and from which the filmmaker had leftover recordings.
Wallace was released in 2013 after 41 years in solitary confinement, and died a few days later. This immersive project is an unsettling but ultimately eye opening tale of endurance and bravery.
Find out more about The Deeper They Bury Me: A Call from Herman Wallace.
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