Last Statement

Today, at the Texas Prison Museum, a photography exhibit called Last Statement will open and run indefinitely. It features photographs of families of victims, including MVFHR member Bud Welch, and photos of family members of the executed, including MVFHR members Rena and Ireland Beazley, Bill Vaught, Lois Robison, and Melanie Hebert (all of whose relatives were executed in Texas) and MVFHR member Tamara Chikunova, whose son was executed in Uzbekistan.

An article in The Huntsville Item describes the exhibit:

A photography exhibit featuring individuals directly affected by capital crimes or capital punishment will open at the Texas Prison Museum on Feb. 1.

The exhibit, produced by photographer Barbara Sloan, features pieces that chronicle executed inmates’ final statements and pieces of individual case history.

“The name of the exhibit is ‘Last Statement,’ and I’ve labeled it as a continuing study of the families of victims and offenders executed on death row,” Sloan said “It’s a black and white photography fine art presentation. Nothing is done by a computer and there is nothing digital involved.”

Sloan said the exhibit features 16 photographs, divided evenly between the families of victims and the families of the executed.

The photographs are paired with paragraphs of text which provide the basic crime data from each case and a portion of the last statement of the person executed.

“I would try to pick something that related to the statement of the person in the photo,” she said. “The largest part of the text was the statement of the person in the photo. The photo may include the mother of a child who was murdered or the mother of an offender who was executed.”

Sloan said she felt her work on “Last Statement” was an incredible experience in her career.

“I’ve found this to be an incredible, sensitive project,” she said. “It is not about the death penalty — that was not the purpose of the project. The purpose was to show compassion for the families who are victims of a capital crime and the families of those suffering the loss of a person executed for a capital crime.”