How We Tell Stories to Children

Sable Elyse Smith

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Object Label

Sable Elyse Smith’s work seeks to make visible the interior and often unseen spaces and experiences of mass incarceration in the United States. How We Tell Stories to Children incorporates audio of the artist reading aloud, blurry found footage, and audio and video recordings made by the artist’s father while incarcerated, interweaving a personal, tender narrative of connection despite enforced distance. Its fleeting, fractured approach—where so much seems to happen off-screen—evokes the systematized silencing and erasure of the more than two million individuals incarcerated in the United States.

Caption

Sable Elyse Smith American, born 1986. How We Tell Stories to Children, 2015. Video, color, sound, 5 minutes 51 seconds, N/A. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Isaac Joseph, 2019.37. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2019.37_view01_SC.jpg)

Title

How We Tell Stories to Children

Date

2015

Medium

Video, color, sound, 5 minutes 51 seconds

Classification

Media

Dimensions

N/A

Credit Line

Gift of Isaac Joseph

Accession Number

2019.37

Rights

© artist or artist's estate

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