---

Social / Political Context

McCallum and Tarry conceived Witness following Abner Louima's torture while in custody of police at the 70th Precinct Station House in Brooklyn on August 9, 1997. The incident induced shock, fear, and indignation in citizens throughout the world. Eighteen months later New York was once again thrust into the center of this issue when four New York City Police officers shot and killed the unarmed Amadou Diallo, in a hail of forty-one bullets.

These harrowing tragedies have refocused national attention on police brutality and galvanized efforts to find long-term solutions. Witness was installed at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, as an environment in which viewers experienced the intimacy of first-hand testimony during a time when the public had become acutely aware of police violence. Unlike news media, which force witness accounts into sound bites, this work enabled viewers to gain a better under-standing of the issues endemic to police misconduct. While the work addressed a history specific to New York City, Witness forces viewers to confront universal challenges inherent in policing a democratic society.

Most police brutality and misconduct cases receive little national media attention. Despite apparently strong evidence, most grand juries fail to indict officers. Furthermore, local authorities consistently try to settle civil lawsuits for police misconduct cases out of court to avoid the acknowledgement of their wrongdoing. The witness statements that are part of these proceedings remain sealed, locked, and silenced. Through the use of testimony in Witness, the personal became political. By recording and presenting the testimonies of those directly involved, the artists created a public space for listening to these accounts—and in the process attempted to extract some form of justice.

During the citywide installation, the call boxes were installed on the street as a group so that viewers could move from one call box to the next, eavesdropping on the amplified testimony. The citywide installation was conceived as a tour: one day the call boxes were installed on a street marked indelibly by police violence; the following day they were installed at the courthouse or civic building where accountability for this act was determined.