Dread Scott
Born:
Chicago, USA (Chicago is the traditional homelands of the Anishinaabe, or the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other Nations consider this area their traditional homeland)
Lives in:
Brooklyn, USA (Brooklyn is situated on the unceded homeland of the Lenape people, part of what was once known as "Lenapehoking" or the Land of the Lenape)
Location
- Campbelltown Arts Centre
Dread Scott is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, USA whose art encourages viewers to re-examine ideals of American society. In 1989 the US Senate outlawed his artwork and President George H. W. Bush declared it ‘disgraceful’ because of its transgressive use of the American flag. Says Scott, ‘I make revolutionary art to propel history forward. I look towards an era without exploitation or oppression. I don’t accept the political structures, economic foundation, social relations and governing ideas of America.’
Dread Scott, Lockdown, 2000/2026. This version was created for the Biennale of Sydney. Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Galley, New York © Dread Scott. Installation view, 25th Biennale of Sydney, Rememory, 2026, Campbelltown Arts Centre. Photograph: Silversalt Photography.
Dread Scott
Born 1965, USA
Lives and works in Brooklyn, USA
Lockdown 2000/2026
framed gelatin silver prints, spoken word audio
This version was created for the Biennale of Sydney
Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Galley, New York
Dread Scott, whose work President G.H.W. Bush once described as “disgraceful”, rejects the political structures, economic foundations and governing ideas of America to create disruptive art from photography, installation and performance. Over a series of portraits and recorded conversations, made during brief meetings in U.S. prisons, Lockdown shares the stories of a handful of the roughly two million people currently incarcerated in the U.S.
Lockdown gives voice to those imprisoned by a judicial system which privileges policy over personhood. The collaged effect of these inmates’ testimonies and portraits – each corresponding pair left purposefully ambiguous – not only undermines the implicit bias viewers may bring to their experience of Lockdown but also creates a moving choral effect. In a manner deeply humanising and startingly intimate, the men speak insightfully about how they arrived in prison as well as the politics which continue to champion mass incarceration.