Fraught Imaginaries
Transmitter Gallery
August 23–October 5, 2025
Fraught Imaginaries is an exhibition and collaborative project that grew out of Maggie Hazen’s work with incarcerated youth at the Columbia Secure Center for Girls in New York's Hudson Valley, bringing together her sculptural investigations of carceral architecture and commissary systems with artworks by members of the Columbia Collective. The title draws from Dr. Nicole Fleetwood’s concept of “Fraught Imaginaries,” which names the complex power dynamics and uneven conditions shaping art made across carceral divides, while also pointing to the possibilities of collective dreaming. Through material transformation, drawing, and sculpture, the project reveals and gently destabilizes the structures—both physical and systemic—that define confinement.
Fraught Imaginaries Coloring Book
By Maggie Hazen & The Columbia Collective
134pp softcover book, including 44 tear-out coloring pages
8 x 10.5 inches
Limited edition of 125
Supply 🌀 Demand
Modular cinder block installation constructed from materials sourced through the prison-industrial supply chain
Dimensions variable
2025
Built in the shape of a walk-through spiral, the installation reconfigures the architecture of the Columbia Secure Center for Girls in Claverack, NY, while drawing from the visual lexicon of privatized, third-party commissary suppliers—companies that provide food, clothing, hygiene items, and other essentials to prisons through catalog and online ordering systems across the United States.
The spiral form is intentional: it mirrors the circular, self-perpetuating logic of the prison-industrial complex, where profit and punishment reinforce one another in a loop that is difficult to escape. At the same time, the spiral gestures toward an opposing symbolic tradition—the spiral as a form o renewal, evolution, and movement toward an emergent center. As viewers walk through the structure, they physically enact the tension between these two forces: the labyrinth of incarceration and the possibility of transformation.
Constructed from materials sourced directly from the prison supply chain, the installation transforms carceral commodities into an immersive spatial environment. Seen through frameworks of magical realism, fantasy, and game theory, th work distorts and recombines these objects to expose the absurd, extractive, and intentionally convoluted nature of the system it draws from. As viewers move through the spiral, the architecture itself begins to feel unstable—warping and dissolving as the system it represents is conceptually dismantled. By reshaping these materials into a navigable form, Supply &Demand foregrounds both the psychic and structural labyrinths of incarceration while imagining their eventual unraveling.
There is No Free Market 💸
34-second looping video on an RCA 13” Clear LED HD TV Model DLTK135R Prison TV HDMI.
11 ¼ x 16 x 2 inches
2025
Chorus
Maggie Hazen & The Columbia Collective
6 minutes 54 seconds,
excerpt: 57 seconds
single-channel video, sound
2025
Expulsion
Colored pencil on paper, aluminum tamperproof bulletin display case, 48 x 2 x 72 inches
2025
Tesseract
colored pencil on glassine, aluminum tamperproof bulletin display case
24” (L) x 2” (W) x 36” (H)
2024
Marilynn Plays Time ⏳
12 minutes
single channel video on custom armature, sound
2025
Assembly
Bob Barker plastic prison food trays
(listed in order from top down)
Tray 1: American Flag print on cotton, resin, bird poop
Tray 2: legal pad paper, Elmer’s glue, melted crayons
Tray 3: stickers, Elmer’s glue
Tray 4: toilet paper, Kool-Aide, Jolly Ranchers, Elmer’s glue
Tray 5: Hot Cheetos, Elmer’s glue
Tray 6: religious fabric, resin
2024
3rd 👁️
defunct security camera, resin, googly eye, plushie fabric, Elmer's glue
3.2” (L) x 3.2” (W) x 3.5”(H)
2024
Soapy
industrial soap dispenser, stickers, HD TV monitor, media player, electrical components
1 minute looping video
5.75” (L) x 5.25” (W) x 11.25”(H)
2023
Bubble Puddle
paper mâché, kozo-shi paper, colored pencil
8.7” (W) x 24.8” (H)
2023
Oh Yeah!?
paper mâché, kozo-shi paper, colored pencil
24oz bottle
2023
Real Metal Cuffs
paper mâché, kozo-shi paper, colored pencil
11”(L) x 5.25” (W) x 11”(H)
2023
First Keys
paper mâché, kozo-shi paper, colored pencil, shrink wrap
7”(L) x 1.5” (W) x 5”(H)
2024
Commissary Catalogs
paper mâché, kozo-shi paper, colored pencil
14.5”(L) x 17.5”(H)
2023-2025
Contraband Bags
clear bag, resin, contraband objects at the Columbia Secure Center for Girls
dimensions vary
2022-2024
The Columbia Secure Center for Girls Archival Prints
digital pigment prints on semi-gloss archival paper
16.5 x 12 inches
2019-2024
