A shiv is a weapon crafted from the limited resources of a prisoner's closed world. Crudely constructed from such things as spoons, shoelaces and upholstery tacks, shivs lie somewhere between the graceful and the grotesque. They're primitive, too — like outsider art, but produced deep on the inside.
The individual parts that make up a shiv tend to be everyday objects, innocent things furtively reconstituted as lethal weapons. Each design choice is essential, but what's particularly notable is that shivs, at their core, are not so much evocations of minimalism as they are symbols of survivalism. A shiv is all about masked utility: it's an innocuous object with improbably toxic intent (whether used to attack others or to protect oneself...).
The shivs shown here, from the collection of designers Chris Kasabach and Vanessa Sica, were confiscated more than twenty years ago from New Jersey's Rahway Prison (now East Jersey State Penitentiary), a maximum-security facility that houses more than 1,500 inmates serving sentences of twenty-five years to life. The designers saw each shiv in their collection as a piece of evidence, and over time, came to identify a kind of unique design pathology. Their observations are fascinating, as are the artifacts that inspired them and the circumstances surrounding each object's unique method of manufacture. You'll never look at a typewriter the same way again.
Comments [37]
07.31.06
02:58
And here's a neat little Web page about how to make a zip gun. The guy talks about being able to "design" one in a day. (Very creative use of punctuation and type.)
BONUS: Here's a photo of a zip gun that was found in a Canadian penitentiary. (Not as extensive as Mr. Kasabach's and Ms. Sica's fine collection of shiv's, but equally disturbing.)
Respectfully,
07.31.06
06:49
It's strange how, when taken out of context, objects can be so beautiful. I doubt that i'd stop to ponder the shivs beauty were i being stabbed with it. Which leads me to my question, Are these being falsely represented in some way? Would we responded in the same way to beautiful photographs of US tanks resting on an Iraqi dune as the sun set?
07.31.06
07:26
These shivs are not just evidence of the human ability to make something from nothing, to forge something beautiful from the most elemental materials. They are also evidence from a prison culture where people are killed everyday. Imagine what they would look like photographed in the hands of their makers?
In looking at these as formal objects of design, we should not forget their use and the context of their making. These objects were made to kill people ... or to protect someone from being killed. They may be evocative on many levels, but they should not be romanticized in their isolation; they also speak to a larger context of fear and danger.
07.31.06
08:33
07.31.06
10:45
Very Respectfully,
07.31.06
10:56
08.01.06
12:46
I think to truly "observe" them you experience some of that pathology yourself and that is what makes them so chilling. The immediacy of their brutality separates them from the tank example although I believe they ARE connected. I think the gun rack scene from the Matrix is a better example.
I get a similar sensation when watching children playing violent video games. The beautiful graphics disguise a horrifying pathology.
08.01.06
09:34
As one becomes a student, and a practitioner, of design, the mind becomes irrevocably changed to see the world in design terms (function, efficiency etc.). This could be called a design 'mind-set', 'viewpoint', 'process'; call it what you may. But it seemed strange for me to consider, then, these inmates utilising, for all intensive purposes, the same 'process' to survey their surroundings: noting which items will prove most efficient; which items will require the least modification; which items will incur minimal cost (in terms of being caught appropriating them).
Maximum-security designers: an odd parallel to imagine.
08.01.06
10:06
I wonder if that's a unique context? Can anyone think of similar contexts? Students cheating on an exam? Drug addicts hiding their tools in the workplace? Espionage or counter-intelligence? Terrorist cells? I suppose they are related in their "covert" nature.
08.01.06
10:25
Using the shivs as an example, it appears that design in its most functional context is void of any kind of decoration or personalization. Based on this observation my question; is a piece of design less functional when it is decorated and/or does the lack of decoration simply speak of the primary function of these weapons?
Let me be clear on as to why I'm asking these questions. First and foremost, I'm simply curious what others have to say, and second, in the recent years there has been an unquestionable resurgence in ornamentation, pattern, and decoration along the birth new movements such as Deco-Rationalism,but few are asking, How does this improve upon a design, thereby making it more effective?
08.01.06
04:32
But those resourceful inmates will find something new. That's why the designers of the buildings work with jailers to outhink them.
This just seems to romanticize prision as this beautiful pergatory on earth, and it's far, far from beautiful.
08.01.06
04:39
'Marching Powder' is a very interesting nonfiction book about a most bizarre and dangerous prison in Bolivia. 'Marching Powder' was written by a young Australian Law student after spending 3 months in the prison, voluntarily.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0330419587/sr=1-2/qid=1154477386/ref=pd_bbs
08.01.06
08:20
The shivs are a response to a prisoner's will to survive/thrive in a violent environment. To intellectualize the weapons into design statements trivializes the reality of these individuals.
I think the real power is found in the collection of images that show the re-thinking a benign tool and transforming it into something deadly.
One image on its own is interesting. But a collection of repurposed objects is one way of telling the story of our prison system and the people who are incarcerated. And a powerful one.
Eunice
08.02.06
12:46
A shiv is a piece of sharp metal or glass with some way to control it's use. It's a frickin sharp rock tied to a stick. There wasn't a whole lot of design going on here.
Then again, my artistic sensibilities may be biased from the idea that these are tools of destruction, not of creation. Unlike a gun, however, the act of creating the tool of destruction is in itself an act of destruction (for example, bet you the typewriter didn't work) and it's not exactly as if a whole lot of thought went into these things.
Again. Pointy. Controllable. That's all you need to make a shiv.
08.02.06
11:38
I would argue that if we are truly recontextualizing these shivs as works of art, then we must leave aside the intention of the artist in our considerations. If we truly consider these to be works of art, then we must not consider the violent purpose for which they were made. Once something has left the hands of the artist, it must stand alone and be received by a conscientous audience for what it is, and only what it is. That is to say, all that there is, is the art, and to that alone must we guide all our praise and/or critique. To consider the context in which it was created does a disservice to the art in question. It lessens the intrinsic value of the art. The art is no longer good in an independent and autonomous fashion, but good because it was created by a criminal, of whom we did not expect so much.
However, it may also be that part of the intrigue of these pieces is the very difficulty of separating the artist from the art, and from considering these shivs independent of their creator's intention.
08.02.06
12:02
I see a cognitive dissonance induced when we use words like "beauty" regarding weapons because their design appeals to us on many levels, some of which we'd rather not acknowledge; Djego Padilla mentions he's reminded of Moroccan fetishes. Many of the objects bear stylistic resemblances to so-called "primitive" weapons; number 7 evokes African and South American club/axes, while number 4 looks like an updated Roman cestus.
However, partly because of the limitations their makers worked under they are supremely, exclusively ergonomic (from the wielder's standpoint at least) and we find that kind of form-follows-function "elegance" appealing.
We look at these things and are properly repelled by their necessity (anyone who believes shivs are not necessities in prison needs to see certain movies like "Glass Houses") yet we appreciate the ingenuity and effort that went into making them, and some dark part of us imagines holding and using them, and critiquing them.
They are soulless tools carefully crafted for a particularly soulless use, yet we can see them as objects d'art because they also satisfy at least some criteria we recognize as essential to art whether their makers intended it or not.
Cognitive dissonance isn't fatal, but one oughtn't obsess over it.
08.02.06
06:26
Having worked in a Federal Penn, I can tell you, you would never get the chance. If you see one in the hand of a prisoner, you are about to feel pain.
08.02.06
09:56
Filed down screwdrivers, sharpened toothbrush handles, forks and spoons with razor edges, rusty nails, air conditioner vent slats; seemingly everything featured a black electrical tape "handle." Nothing seemed beyond the imagination of the desperate folks on the inside of the building.
I wonder if my dad kept any of those things, or if they have been lost to time. I guess I could always ask him to shake down the barracks and send me the findings. I'd love to have another chance to rummage through a few coffee maker boxes now.
08.02.06
10:25
08.03.06
01:30
The Hoosegow is about Survival among Animalistic Mentalities.
Pure, Original, Forward Thinking, Bare Bones Design is Concerned with SIMPLICITY of Primitive and Primal Esthetics.
Ten (10) to Twenty (20) years in the Hoosegow is about Survival amongst Animalistic Mentality's.
Ten (10) to Twenty (20) years in a Design Career is about Survival amongst Animalistic Mentality's.
I know nothing of the Former can Attest to the Latter.
Longevity of Design Survival and Hoosegow Survival are Governed by Darwinism.
SURVIVAL OF THE BIGGEST!!!!!!!
DM
08.03.06
04:36
08.03.06
08:12
As we enter the weekend, enter a kinder gentler "shiv". An excerpt from today's NYT/US section follows. Note, the article in its entirety is less than kind. -Chris
Prison Disciplines Inmate Who Paints With M&Ms
"[Mr. Johnson] has been in solitary confinement in a small concrete cell for almost two decades. He paints with a brush he created with plastic wrap, foil and his own hair. He makes paint by leaching the colors from M&M's in little plastic containers that once held packets of grape jelly. His canvases are postcards."
08.04.06
04:12
08.04.06
05:41
08.04.06
06:50
08.05.06
03:15
Although these shivs were taken from a max-hardcore prison, it makes ya wonder about the majority of prisons, who house dangerous people as well as those who have committed victimless crimes, such as marijuana violations.
08.05.06
05:23
08.11.06
09:33
A few of these could even easily be carried in past airport security more easily today than the 9/11 hijackers got their boxcutters in. Plastic or glass will cut you just as well as metal. Others could be made inside.
08.15.06
03:06
Sadly, having been used as a weapon against oppressors of the desperate Palestinian people isn't she beautiful in the same twisted way?
Why don't Arab Americans in the United States or Palestinian sympathizers engage in peaceful resistance by celebrating the anniversary of the passage of U.N. Resolution 242 of 1967, with a 2k, 5k or 10k run?
08.16.06
11:24
on another note, see the book 'Home-made: Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts'. incredibly beautiful objects made in desperate poverty.
09.01.06
04:43
Some weapons are made with pride, & show good work, but most are basic. I know this stuff from over 15 years in & out of Calif. jails, & prisons. Good site, & subject, loved looking at the pics, & reading the comments.
09.05.06
12:15
Funny story:
I smuggled some of that sodium whatever-it's-called into the dorm and spilled some next to my bunk. People coming from the showers walked past my bed, dripping water on the sodium that I missed. A pinhead of that stuff is like a firecracker going off when it comes in contact with water. Another one of those unexplained prison phenomena, I guess, 'cause I was never nailed for it.
09.12.06
10:57
12.13.06
12:38
01.17.07
03:17
03.15.07
06:47
05.31.09
12:31