On fire like hell fire
2016
Single channel video
20:51
On fire like Hell Fire is a narrative-video of interwoven personal statements by men and women incarcerated across the U.S. regarding their exposure to chemical weapons by prison guards. I have been given access to hundreds of letters gathered in response to an ad placed by the War Resisters League in Issue 21 (2013) of The Abolitionist, a newspaper distributed in American prisons by the prison abolitionist group Critical Resistance. These incarcerated men and women have expressed a desire for their stories, of first hand experience with chemical weapons while incarcerated, to be heard. On fire like Hell Fire draws the connection of the use of chemical weapons as a form of submission, often on individuals with known mental health issues, from the individual to the collective prison experience.
In grammar, first person, singular refers to statements made by a speaker in reference to him or herself, or to a group including him or herself. It is the subjective case in which one can express an experience that is, in essence, individual but can also be understood as collective. In reading through the prisoner letters solicited by the War Resisters League, for their “Facing Tear Gas” campaign, I was struck by the repetition in experience. While such repetition speaks to national policies and tactics institutionally executed, it also connects the singular experiences of the inmates to a larger collective experience of retaliation by prison guards against prisoners.