Creative Learning for Justice

Creative Learning for Justice (CLJ) is a project led by Ana Chamberlen, Ruth Bernatek and Henrique Carvalho, co-organisers of the International Justice Arts Network. This project is funded by Warwick Innovations and it is also supported by the Centre for Critical Legal Studies.

The project builds on previous work by the researchers and combines creative pedagogic interventions inside prisons, prison educator training, and arts-based events, exhibitions and outputs aimed at public engagement. The project will formalise a model of prison learning designed and piloted by the team which draws from critical pedagogic approaches and arts-based methods; they have been utilising this pedagogic model at their prison teaching since 2024.

Between 2026-2027 the team will host various activities and initiatives inside prisons and beyond. In particular, the team will launch the Just Arts magazine, a digital and print resource dedicated to artistic interventions on prisons and justice that features and critically focuses on the work of artists from marginalised backgrounds and with lived experiences of injustice and criminalisation.

At a time of significant cuts in prison education funding and in the arts more generally, this project seeks to centre the University’s unique position and civic responsibility to offer life-changing impact to marginalized populations through a creative approach to emancipatory pedagogies and justice.

Penned Up Festival Poster. Original design by 'The Dispersed Collective' 2026

Penned Up @ HMP Long Lartin

June - September 2026

Penned Up seeks to promote reading, writing and the arts inside prisons. In June 2026, the Creative Learning for Justice team collaborated with festival director David Kendall to take a series of literary and musical events to HMP Long Lartin.

This was first occasion that the festival has been hosted in a UK Category A prison and we were honoured to be joined in the summer by writers Derek Owsu and Paul Zanon, the artist Gary Mansfield and virtuoso concert Pianist Clare Hammond. In September, we look forward to hosting the finale event with British broadcast journalist and presenter Raphael Rowe.

Below is just a few things that attendees shared about the programme so far:

"The music made me feel like I was away from prison."

"The authenticity that Gary spoke about we could all relate to."

"Art is a fantastic thing!"

"I hope to continue reading daily and improve my knowledge."

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Penned Up Festival @ HMP Long Lartin was made possible through a Warwick Institute for Engagement Collaboration & Co-production Fund 2025/26.

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Artistic Residency with Steeldoor Studios

Expressions of Justice: Creative Dialogues on Punishment, Hope and Redemption

February - October 2026

What happens when art opens up conversations about incarceration, identity and change? In February 2026, the University of Warwick welcomed Steeldoor Studios as Artist in Residence, bringing creative practice and lived experience into the heart of the university. Working with students across Law, Sociology and Criminology, the residency created space for open conversations about prison, trauma, identity, rehabilitation and the possibility of change. Drawing on personal experience of imprisonment, Steeldoor Studios uses art to challenge perceptions of the criminal justice system and invite us to look beyond labels.
Read our student blog here.

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The residency was made possible through a Warwick Institute for Engagement Collaboration & Co-production Fund (2025/26).

Image (Left): Broken, acrylic on board, (2026), by Steeldoor Studios.

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