“He looked at me and asked, are you a man or a beast?
I questioned if there is a difference between the two.
There can be if you want, that’s the butterfly, that’s the aim, it just takes time.”
The photographs in Folly, the debut photobook from Jamie Murray, were born from a series of conversations with individuals who have been incarcerated. Discussions of what had led to punishment, navigating the prison environment and the transition to freedom flowed towards philosophy, ideas of discipline and punishment, intertwined with questions around natural order and spirituality. The resulting allegorical photographs in Folly refer, both directly and indirectly, to what was said and how these conversations affected Murray.