Days in Liberty
Christopher Paul Jordan and Kenji Stoll
Dexter Horton Building
A cacophony of imagery considers the chaos of the criminal justice system.
Christopher Paul Jordan and Kenji Stoll explore the forces surrounding the criminal justice system in a pair of murals at Seattle’s Dexter Horton Building, home to King County’s Department of Public Defense (DPD). The title of the work refers to a term DPD staff use to describe how many days clients stay out of jail before they return.
Days in Liberty renders the chaos of the system through layers of familiar imagery—from activism, community organizing, surveillance culture, and children’s media. A close look reveals Scruff McGruff the Crime Dog, DARE, Neighborhood Watch, security envelopes, the Seattle chapter of the Black Panthers, and more.
“We’re questioning the narratives being given to young people about a system that’s set up to target and fail them in the future, while also highlighting examples of local community members who’ve organized and fought for social change,” Jordan and Stoll wrote in their artist statement for this work.
The first panel depicts the pattern of surveillance—both how the public is surveilled by the system and how communities have begun to hold police accountable using recordings. The second panel documents the direct action of communities to unpack the pattern of surveillance, resist oppression, and connect with youth culture.