Captive Arts: Curating the curious symbiosis between the arts and imprisonment

该项目旨在对英国监狱中的艺术家进行首次实证调查。其主要研究问题是：谁是囚犯艺术家，监禁的经历如何塑造他们的身份、艺术产出以及他们在监狱内外的接受？虽然监禁是一种极为有害的经历，它严重限制了基本自由，并在西方新自由主义社会中激发了我们对严厉和长期惩罚的文化迷恋，但艺术-以视觉艺术、雕塑、音乐、戏剧、诗歌和创意写作等各种表现形式-在监狱中蓬勃发展。监狱中的艺术在为囚犯提供否则无法获得的表达机会方面发挥着重要作用，并作为教育、治疗和与外界交流的重要来源。惩教机构也越来越多地将艺术作为实现康复和解决累犯等目标的主要方式之一，这一战略有着悠久的历史，尽管有些动荡。这个项目旨在了解艺术和监禁之间这种奇怪的共生关系，以及艺术身份如何以及为什么会出现在刑事环境中。它将首次全面审视艺术在服刑和退役囚犯的生活和身份中所扮演的角色，并通过部署定性和基于艺术的方法，它将使囚犯艺术能够系统地参与，以促进我们对惩罚情绪的理解，监禁的影响，经验，囚犯的应对和抵抗策略以及我们可以从囚犯的艺术品中获得的政治信息。该研究将对囚犯艺术作为一种独特的艺术类型进行全面的描述，并将揭示艺术在以下方面的潜力：A）阐明监禁的经历和影响; B）改变囚犯和前囚犯的生活和轨迹; C）在一个否则会受到压抑的机构中充当政治表达的手段，将内部人员与外部观众联系起来。后一方面也将为项目的公众参与活动提供信息，这些活动旨在利用艺术的情感力量来改变公众对犯罪和司法问题的看法，并展示囚犯艺术对个人和社区的影响。该项目旨在通过提出一个研究当代惩罚与创造性表达之间矛盾关系的概念工具包，为监狱研究、犯罪学、社会法律和社区艺术以及局外人艺术研究做出实质性贡献。该项目涉及实证实地工作，包括与囚犯、前囚犯、在监狱工作的艺术治疗师以及监狱中的艺术从业者和教育工作者进行访谈。它还涉及对监狱中提供的短期艺术课程进行人种学观察，并对参与者创作的艺术品和公共领域中的囚犯艺术进行分析。该项目将包括组织一个大型的国际研讨会，让一系列从业人员和利益相关者参与关于囚犯艺术未来的政策知情和研究主导的讨论。它将在沃里克艺术中心举办同类最大的囚犯艺术节，与前囚犯艺术家共同制作。它还将创建第一个囚犯艺术数字档案馆，并将在沃里克的现代记录中心托管，以促进未来的研究和更广泛的参与囚犯艺术。该项目还将建立一个网站，展示囚犯的艺术作品和项目的发现，并主办关于监狱美学和在囚禁中成为艺术家的经历的播客和博客。学术产出将包括一本专著、两篇经同行审查的文章以及在以艺术为基础的、囚犯主导的和刑事司法平台上的媒体产出。

This project seeks to conduct the first empirical investigation of artists in English prisons. Its main research question is: who are prisoner artists and how does the experience of imprisonment shape their identity, artistic outputs and their reception within and beyond prison walls? While imprisonment is a predominantly detrimental experience, actively curtailing fundamental freedoms and animating our cultural infatuation with harsh and long punishments in Western neoliberal societies, the arts - in their various manifestations from visual art, sculpture, music, theatre, poetry and creative writing, among others - are thriving inside prisons. The arts in prison play a fundamental role in enabling for prisoners an otherwise inaccessible opportunity for expression and act as a significant source of education, therapy, and communication with the outside world. The arts have also been increasingly mobilised by penal institutions as one of the main ways in which objectives such as rehabilitation and tackling recidivism can be addressed, a strategy that has a long, if somewhat turbulent, history. This project seeks to understand this curious symbiosis between the arts and imprisonment, and how and why artistic identities emerge in penal settings. It will provide the first comprehensive examination of the role that the arts play in the lives and identities of serving and former prisoners and by deploying qualitative and arts-based methodologies it will enable a systematic engagement with prisoner arts, to advance our understandings of the emotions of punishment, the impacts of imprisonment, the experiences, coping and resistance strategies of prisoners and the political messages we can derive from prisoners' artworks. The study will curate a comprehensive account of prisoner arts as a distinct art genre.It will unpack the potential of the arts in A) articulating the experience and effects of imprisonment; B) transforming the lives and trajectories of prisoners and former prisoners; C) acting as means of political expression in an otherwise repressed institution, connecting those inside with audiences outside. This latter aspect will also inform the public engagement activities of the project which seek to utilise the affective power of the arts to alter public perceptions on issues of crime and justice and showcase the impact that prisoner arts can have for individuals and communities alike. The project seeks to make a substantive contribution to prison studies, criminology, socio-legal and community arts and outsider arts research by advancing a conceptual toolkit for studying the ambivalent relationship between contemporary punishment and creative expression. The project involves empirical fieldwork including interviews with prisoners, former prisoners, arts therapists working in prisons, and arts practitioners and educators in prisons. It also involves ethnographic observation of short arts-courses offered in prisons and analysis of artworks created by participants and of prisoner arts available in the public domain. The project will include the organisation of a major, international workshop engaging a range of practitioners and stakeholders in policy-informed and research-led discussions on the future of prisoner arts. It will host the largest prisoner arts festival of its kind at Warwick Arts Centre, co-produced with former prisoners who are artists. It will also create the first digital archive of prisoner arts to be hosted at Warwick's Modern Records Centre to promote future research and wider engagement with prisoner arts. The project will also produce a website that will showcase prisoner artworks and findings from the project, and host podcasts and blogposts on carceral aesthetics and the experience of becoming an artist in captivity. Academic outputs will include a monograph, two peer-reviewed articles and media outputs at arts-based, prisoner-led and criminal justice platforms.