The Innocents

Recently, I went to The Contemporary Arts Center located in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. If you haven't been there, you should check it out. The building itself is amazing. I recommend stopping in the resource center and watching the Zaha Hadid interview. She is the designing architect. I could get lost in conversations about design. Alas, I digress.

So this past weekend, I went to CAC for the first time. All of the shows are temporary exhibits (which I'm thrilled about), and we viewed the works of Tony Oursler, exhibits Gadgets and The Whole World is Rotten, The UnMuseum, and The Innocents, a collection of works by Taryn Simon.


The Innocents was beautifully and powerfully done. The bold images drew me in. I read the commentary for each work and then just looked into the eyes of the subjects. What went through their minds as they stood in that strange, yet significant place. Were they at peace with the hand that life had dealt them? Would they ever be? What if I were in the series? Would I be grateful or resentful? I thought about how they must have been abandoned and abused. I wondered how difficult it was to adjust to prison, and then to adjust to the free world again. As I sit and ponder over their stories and images now, I wonder what it was like to be found guilty of a crime that one did not commit. To be found guilty of raping a minor, robbery, murder, kidnapping.... What was that first night as a "convicted felon" like? What went through their minds as they lay on their bunk, trying to sleep.

There is one image that gets me the most. It is a picture of a man standing with his arm around a woman. My mind quickly assumed they were a couple, and then I read the caption. She was a rape victim, and she had misidentified him. He was later released related to DNA evidence. Wow, would I be able to forgive someone who had made the mistake of MY life? Just think for years I was in prison, my family (a)shamed, my picture on some sex offenders webpage, all the friends in the community fading from the picture, but here this guy is with his arm around this woman. Now what if I were the woman? How the heck could I face this man, who I put away? How in the world would I ever be able to face him? I don't think I would ever feel that any apology I offered would be good enough, but there she is, comfortably standing next to him.

God did this for us. He was found guilty of a crime that was not His. He went through the conviction, the humiliation, the abuse, and the death penalty, all the while interceding for us, asking His Father to forgive us, and once He "got out" He stilled loved us more than we can deserve or understand.