Warwick University and Warwick Arts Centre hosted a one-day symposium on Prisoner Arts in Context: Global Perspectives, which brought together stakeholders from across the world to discuss the prospects and challenges of making art in carceral settings. The symposium showcased art and performances by those with lived experience of the criminal justice system, and facilitated discussions between artists, arts practitioners, activists, the prison service, leading cultural institutions, and academics.

The day was structured around four interactive panel discussions. The first panel, on the theme of art and rehabilitation, shared insights from research into the outcomes and impact of arts programmes in criminal justice institutions. Speakers considered the potential and flexibility of the arts to address the pragmatic concerns of an over-stretched prison service, as well as the challenges facing arts practitioners in gaining access to high security institutions, attracting funding, and building an evidence base to support their work. Negative public opinion and hostile media coverage emerged as key issues standing in the way of raising the profile of prison arts and celebrating the talent and success stories found within the system.

The second panel featured four UK-based artists with lived experience of imprisonment. They discussed the obstacles to establishing an artistic career and identity after prison, including facing stigma and the lack of pathways into the arts and culture sector post-release; the emotional impact of making art that bears witness to their experience, as part of an activism to help others who are suffering in the system; and their struggle for free and unbounded creative expression, which is neither tied to the prison experience nor a disavowal of it. The conversation highlighted the critical importance to wellbeing of the ability to create and express oneself while incarcerated, the transformative effects of art on their individual life trajectories, and the failures of the system to ensure access to creative provision, especially in lower category prisons.

 [Speakers: G6ix – musician and member of the Irene Taylor Trust; Erika Flowers – visual artist; David Shipley – writer and doctoral researcher, University of Southampton; Jason N Smith – spoken word artist and poet]

The third panel considered the reception and communication of prisoner arts from a wide range of perspectives, encompassing artists, curators, human rights and social change advocates, and academics from Australia, the Middle East and North Africa, the UK, and the United States. Inadequate access to facilities and opportunities, both inside prison and after release, and a wariness around media coverage and public opinion once again emerged as key challenges facing prison artists and those who facilitate their work. Powerful insights were provided into the potential of art to counteract the harmful prison environment and resist its stigmatising, dehumanising, anonymising effects, and to imbue currently and formerly incarcerated artists with a sense of mission, dignity, and social capital. The importance of allowing prisoner artists into the curatorial process, rather than handing this role to state authorities or other culturally dominant organisations, was emphasised.

[Speakers: artist via Steeldoors Studios; Dean Kelland – former HMP Grendon artist in residence and IKON Gallery; Sarah Matheve – Koestler Arts; Sumaya Tabbah and Susan Aboeid – curators, MENA region; Jeremy Ryder – Flinders University; Sarah Unrath – University of Michigan Prison Creative Arts Program]

The final panel of the day focused on initiatives that globalise the concept of prison arts through international collaboration. Panelists discussed the universality of certain aspects of the prison experience, while recognising the challenges of implementing interventions that can transcend legal and cultural differences. One interesting provocation was how disseminating prison art to an international audience can play an educational role, by inviting audiences to consider the systemic position of the justice system and those who maintain or are caught inside it.

[Speakers: Faye Claridge – We Roar founder and doctoral researcher, University of Warwick; George Rogers – We Roar mentor; Sarah Hartley – NOVUS; Gabriela Aidar and Milene Chiovatto – Pinacoteca de Sao Paolo; Suzanne Kessler – Rehabilitation Through the Arts ]

Closing remarks delivered by Charlie Weinberg (August Consultancy) and David Kendall (Penned Up) summarised the ways in which the symposium’s impact could be felt in real time, through the lively, constructive dialogue that played out between critical, hopeful, and pragmatic voices. The event successfully drew attention to the challenges faced by individuals participating in and delivering arts in criminal justice settings, and brought together perspectives and learnings from all parts of the system and across the globe in a celebration of talent and perseverance and a commitment to continuing reform.

The exhibition of creative works at the symposium engaged with and showcased prisoner arts’ distinctive features. Performances were given by G6ix, Jason N Smith, David Shipley, and Anita-Joy Uwajeh for Clean Break Theatre. Visual art was exhibited by Erika Flowers, Steeldoors Studios, Niki Gibbs, Will Jackson & Hwa Young Jung, Rideout Theatre, Penned Up, We Roar, Monstrous Reputation: The Battle Within, Middle Eastern artists curated by Sumaya Tabbah and Susan Aboeid, and US artists curated by the University of Michigan PCAP program.

The day closed with a drinks reception and canapés served by Liberty Kitchen, and a film screening of Sing Sing, which was attended by conference participants and university students.

The symposium is part of the research project Captive Arts: Curating the curious symbiosis between the arts and imprisonment led by Prof. Anastasia Chamberlen and supported by the UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and the ESRC’s Impact Acceleration Account, with contributions from Faye Claridge’s We Roar project supported by Arts Council UK. The one-day event was organised by Prof. Anastasia Chamberlen and Dr Ruth Bernatek, and convened in association with project collaborators Faye Claridge, Sarah Hartley, and Sally Foreman.