The Last Meals Project

The arrangements of the pictures are as follows. An image of a person, with food super imposed onto the image of their face. For some pictures, instead of images of food superimposed, there is instead a piece of paper superimposed to it. What is the significant of the food and piece of paper superimposed onto the person’s headshot you may ask?

Well, the people in the headshots are prisoners. There are waiting for their death row sentence. Prisoners who have been sentenced to death row are allowed to have last meal wish. They can ask for whatever they want to have for their last meal, as long as it is not beyond 40 USD and that it is bought locally from their location. There are allowed this last wish prior to their sentence. The thought of being able to consume anything at all when you know you will be served the death sentence after it makes me shiver.

What made me want to bring up this rather uncomfortable issue is when I read about Jonathon Kambouris’ Last meals project. He started this project of which is a series of convicted felons pictures along with their choice of meals before their execution.


"It all started on June 12, 2001. This was the day after Timothy McVeigh was executed. I was reading an article in the Detroit Free Press about the execution and they described his final moments and his last meal. Immediately, a cold chill coursed through my body and at that point I started researching last meals of other convicted killers,"

– Jonathan Kambouris


The artist is trying to push forward his message and questions on ‘how society is really served by the death penalty’. Recently, he held an exhibition at the Esplanade in Singapore. All of the convicts pictures along with their last meals were exhibited along the Esplanade Tunnel. The traffic there is heavy and it is a strategic place to have the photo exhibition.




and by far for me, the most thought provoking last meal request is :


He asked for 'justice,equality and world piece' for his last meal. What was given to him in return was a piece of paper with his last meal wish.

I think this is a powerful and very thought provoking exhibition. It definitely is a much heavier type of art that requires heavy information digestion. It raises the issue of, is what are we doing, the 'death sentence' enough to prevent and minimize crime. This pictures gives me the chill, in all of it's raw honesty and directness of it. So maybe we should really think of the root of the problems that creates all of these convicts. Because last i checked, crime rates and killings are still on the rise, even with the death penalty, which was first established in the 18th century in the code of king Hammaurabi of Babylon. Obviously it is not working if even after this time, the numbers are increasing instead of decreasing. Clearly there is a bigger and deeper problem with society , community and their values.



images and information taken from:

http://www.lastmealsproject.com

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org