Sites of Public Execution

For the past eight years, I have been researching, photographing and making short films of sites that had been used for public executions at different times in history.  I began this project seeking a perspective on how societies that have abolished the death penalty deal with their history of executions and the public interest in watching these events take place.  It was 2001, and there was a group of people petitioning for Timothy McVeigh's execution to be televised, the modern form of a public arena.  It occurred to me that this desire to watch people being killed, as perceived justice, is still alive in America; I wanted to compare what I was finding in the US with countries that have changed their laws, to see what happened as public policy and the function of a public place changed, and to discover what it held of its history.  I set out to find former public execution sites and photograph them as they look today, empty of people, so that the viewer can populate them with his or her imagination of the past.  Some of the places used for executions became sites of veneration to the executed, such at St. Peter's Square in Rome or the town of Salem, MA where the accused witches were hung.  Some are now well known for other reasons, such as the Louvre, in front of which the guillotine was installed during the French Revolution.  Why is one form of killing accepted, one commemorated, and one shameful?  This seemed to say more to me about our present day morality and values in each country than the abolishment or continuation of capital punishment.  Public executions are not only a part of history.  In October 2008, a 13-year old rape victim was publicly stoned to death for adultery in Somalia.  This is only one of the public executions still happening in the world today.  With these images, I hope that viewers will consider the role we play in creating our society’s legacy and future.

This collection of images and places are by no means proportionally representative of the many places in which executions have taken and still take place.  These are a selection of the images I have made in this ongoing project. They reflect the places I have been able to visit thus far.

Sites of Public Execution book available for purchase from Gallery NAGA

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