Here in the arch of hysteria, pleasure and pain are merged in a state of happiness. Her arch-the mounting of tension and the release of tension-is sexual. It is a substitute for orgasm with no access to sex. She creates her own world and is very happy. Nowhwere is it written that a person in these states is suffering. She functions in a self-made cell where the rules of happiness and stress are unknown to us.“ Louise Bourgeois

Jana Sterbak, Bread Bed, exposition “La Disparition des lucioles”, prison Sainte-Anne en Avignon, août 2014

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Steve McQueen, The Weight, 2016. Gold-plated mosquito net draped over a prison-issue bunkbed. Photograph: © Marcus J. Leith. Courtesy of Artangel.