International Justice Arts Network (IJAN)

End-of-Residency Artist Talk with Steeldoor Studios | 2-4pm | Central Campus | Ramphal Building R3.25

What happens when art opens up conversations about incarceration, identity and change?

In February 2026, 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.

Bobby will share a bit about his experience working with us and will discuss also his future artistic plans. We hope that this end-of-residency event will also open a space for us to discuss the relationship between art, academic research and teaching, and how we approach questions around justice through art.

This celebration will include time for Q+A and is open to all - please join us!

Whole Network Meeting | 12-1pm GMT

Welcome Back IJAN Members!!

During this meeting we will share IJAN news from the past year and discuss plans for the year ahead.

A brief annual report of our activities during the last year can be found here. 

International Art Collaborations from Custody: Brazil-UK and Beyond | 2-3.30pm GMT (11am-12.30pm BRT)

Join us for an online round table discussion of We Youth, the first youth custody art collaboration with the UK and Brazil, a trailblazing project, exhibition series and publication born from belief that creativity, teamwork and ambition can have long-term positive impacts.

Collaborators will outline the We Youth project, delving into its ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ and ‘what ifs’, and discuss how ambitious visual art projects like We Youth can act be a springboard to reimagine the role of the arts in youth and adult justice systems.

• Faye Claridge, We Youth creator, artist and doctoral researcher, UK

• Augusto Sampaio, artist and educator, São Paulo

• Gabriela Aidar, Gerente Ação Educativa, Pinacoteca de São Paulo

• Sarah Hartley, Novus National Creative Strategies Manager & National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance Co-Chair

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Dalton Harrison | A Prison Within a Prison: An Evocative Autoethnographic Approach to being a Transgender Man in a Women’s Prison in England | 2-3pm GMT

Silence can still breed violence. Trans men are hidden in criminal justice systems that have fixated on trans women. In systems that only recognise male and female experiences, what happens to those who do not have validated experiences? This is a unique chance to follow one trans man's journey through this system.

• Dalton Harrison is a dyslexic trans man, poet and author whose work is shaped by lived experience of the criminal justice system. He holds a BA and MSc in Criminal Justice and Criminology from the University of Leeds.

Book Launch | Carceral Arts: Global Perspective on Creativity, Justice and Resistance

This interdisciplinary collection examines the thriving world of arts and creativity within prisons and other sites of confinement, revealing the complex terrain of ‘carceral aesthetics’. Set within environments marked by repression, contributors reveal how artistic practices become vital strategies of coping, resistance and political expression, while also being entangled in institutional rehabilitation agendas.

Bringing together global scholarship, artist experiences and practice-based insights, the book interrogates the motivations, tensions and histories that shape prisoner arts, highlighting their role as testimonies to the lived experience—and pains—of captivity. Together, the chapters offer a theoretical framework for understanding the promises and contradictions of carceral arts today.

Further details on the book can be found here.

Sabrina Speranza | "Dale Gas /Let’s do it now”: Theatre in prisons for adolescents | 2-3pm BST

Different societies are so used to the idea of punishment and incarceration that it is hard to push public policies onto something alternative. What happens when punitive measures are applied to people who are still growing up and developing? How does that affect their growth and the construction of their own identity? Teenagerhood is the privileged stage to investigate who we want to be, to find role models, to try different suits to see which one feels more comfortable. What happens to all this when a teenager is sent to prison? How can theatre offer a way to try different suits, to leave behind the criminal label and experience new alternatives and sensitivities?

• Sabrina Speranza is a theatre maker, educator and social activist. Her main professional expertise is working with teenagers and young people, in prison and behind prison. Sabrina currently teaches at the Multidisciplinary Dramatic School in Montevideo, is Artistic Director of Descentrada Escena, and recently completed a PhD in Drama and Theatre Studies.

Sylvie Frigon | The role of Prison Theatre in Canada and France | 12-1pm GMT | Central Campus

Providing an unprecedented look inside Canada’s only prison theatre run by inmates, William Head on Stage (WHoS), this session draws on research and a recent book publication that examines the prison context, participants’ experiences, and the transformative impact of theatre on the lives of criminalized individuals.

• Professor Sylvie Frigon holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is professor of the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa where she has taught since 1993.

Book Launch | Listening nearby to sonic citizenship and social Justice: Talking and listening Sound and Detention | 2-3pm GMT

Sound and Detention explores soundscapes in places of confinement to better understand experiences of imprisonment, and to imagine alternatives to the carceral state. Bringing together over 40 contributors from five continents, this book tunes in to some of the manifold effects associated with the presence and absence of sound and music at sites of detention. Scholarly texts feature alongside poetry, memoir, experimental writing and a diverse collection of audio productions. This plurality of form mediates the voices of artists, activists, thinkers and practitioners—some themselves currently or formerly incarcerated – who each bring their distinct perspectives to consider what it might mean to ‘listen nearby’.

• Áine Mangaoang, University of Oslo, Norway.
• Lucy Cathcart- Frödén, University of Oslo, Norway.
• Kate Herrity, University of Cambridge, UK.

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Film Screening | Punishments Acts + Q&A with the creators Saul Hewish & Dr Sarah Bartley | 2-4.30pm | Central Campus | FAB. Cinema

A new play by an arts organisation that works with prisoners and staff in UK prisons that explores society's relationship to punishment.

Punishment Acts is set in a fictional prison and will ask audiences to reflect on their beliefs about punishment and consider whether there are other ways to achieve justice. The cast includes a mix of professional actors, people who will be making their first stage appearance and some who have previously been in custody. The play was made by prison arts specialists Rideout, along with B arts and members of community interest company Expert Citizens. It draws on ideas discussed by French philosopher Michel Foucault in his work Discipline and Punish, the play explores the development of the modern prison.

• Saul Hewish, University of Warwick
• Sarah Bartley, Central School of Speech and Drama, London

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A Conversation | Evaluation, Evidence and Quality in Prison Arts Programmes | 1-2pm GMT

The emerging field of arts-in-corrections (AIC), specifically the teaching of the arts to people in prison, is an exciting and rewarding field in which we hope to see many more practitioners. Certainly those in prison benefit greatly, but so do administrators and society in general. An important consideration, especially to funders, is, how are such programs effectively evaluated? This seminar discussion will provide an introduction to what should be expected in an evaluation of an AIC educational program, an overview of the challenges of evaluation, and specific suggestions for planning your program evaluation.

• Charlie Weinberg, Independent Consultant and Director of August.org (UK)
• John R. Whitman, Creative Prisons Project (Chicago) and co-editor of International Journal for Creativity Inside (IJCI).

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Feminist Approaches to Participatory Art: Researching Women’s Prisons in Peru | 3-4pm GMT

This session explores the importance of incorporating artistic and participatory techniques in contexts of confinement, such as penitentiary facilities, from a feminist perspective. It focuses on research conducted through individual and collective collages created by female prisoners in Lima, Peru, examining the fluid boundaries between symbolic and concrete prisons, as well as the dynamics of resistance and agency within these spaces. we will delve into the theoretical foundations of artistic methodology and discuss how art serves as a means of expression that fosters creativity, critical thinking, solidarity, and self-discovery.

• Lucia Bracco, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
• Camila Rodrigo, Photographer based in Lima, where she works as an artist, freelance photographer, and editor.

Exhibition | Timing Out: Creative Reflections on Prison Life | Warwick Arts Centre | 6-9pm GMT

This exhibition showcases visual artworks, poetry, and music created by men serving long sentences, who are incarcerated at a maximum-security prison in England. The pop-up was programmed part of Resonate Festival 2025 and its theme considers what it means to ‘do time’ and to move through major stages of life - youth, adulthood, and old age- while in custody. It also explores how incarceration impacts one’s sense of self, and their perception of time, space, belonging and justice.

Exhibiting artists creatively used a range of restricted materials and worked closely with the team of arts education staff at the prison and a group of Warwick academics from Sociology and Law who have been teaching at the prison since 2024.

Their artworks offer a politically- attuned critique of questions of justice and injustice; freedom, responsibility and hope; and questions of pain, survival, and resistance.

The exhibition catalogue can be viewed here.

Whole Network Meeting | 12.30-2pm GMT

The Affective Impact of Shadow Puppetry on o-Facilitators Entering the Carceral System of Bogotá, Colombia | 4-5pm GMT

A reflection on how the experience of facilitating shadow puppetry workshops in the library of Bogota’s District Jail (May 2023 – May 2024) became a participatory pedagogy for co-learning. The aim was to create collaborative pieces based on legends, myths, and fairytales from Colombia, with incarcerated librarians as the directors, playwrights, designers and performers. The second semester included a collaboration with Arts student from Los Andes University as part of a Puppets and Masks class I taught. I will unpack my class discussions with the university students about this experience, particularly how our preconceived notions of the jail and its population changed. In an effort to understand why shadow puppets could be “useful” in this space, not only as an artistic product, but as a medium for human connection, I will consider how the transformation we were best able to perceive was in those of us going in from the outside.

• Sarah Ashford Hart, William & Mary, US
• Lucas Ospina, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

International Justice Arts Network: Inaugural Meeting | 12-1pm GMT

Sharing our learning from the Symposium Prisoner Arts in Context: Global Perspectives.

• Ana Chamberlen, University of Warwick
• Ruth Bernatek, University