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

本项目旨在对英国监狱中的艺术家进行首次实证调查。它的主要研究问题是：谁是囚犯艺术家，监禁的经历如何塑造他们的身份、艺术产出和他们在监狱内外的接受？虽然监禁在很大程度上是一种有害的经历，它积极地限制了基本自由，并激发了我们对西方新自由主义社会中严酷和长期惩罚的文化迷恋，但艺术——从视觉艺术、雕塑、音乐、戏剧、诗歌和创意写作等各种表现形式——在监狱里蓬勃发展。监狱中的艺术发挥着重要作用，为囚犯提供了一个在其他情况下无法获得的表达机会，并作为教育、治疗和与外界交流的重要来源。艺术也越来越多地被刑事机构动员起来，作为实现改造和处理累犯等目标的主要方式之一，这是一种长期的战略，如果有些动荡，历史。该项目旨在了解艺术与监禁之间的这种奇怪的共生关系，以及艺术身份如何以及为什么会在刑罚环境中出现。它将首次全面考察艺术在现役和前囚犯的生活和身份中所扮演的角色，并通过采用定性和基于艺术的方法，它将使我们能够系统地参与囚犯艺术，促进我们对惩罚的情绪、监禁的影响、囚犯的经历、应对和抵抗策略以及我们可以从囚犯艺术中获得的政治信息的理解。这项研究将对囚犯艺术作为一种独特的艺术流派进行全面的介绍。它将在以下方面揭示艺术的潜力：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)在一个受压迫的机构中充当政治表达的手段，将内部的人与外部的观众联系起来。后一个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。该项目旨在通过推进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外部艺术研究做出实质性贡献。该项目涉及实证实地调查，包括与囚犯、前囚犯、在监狱工作的艺术治疗师、监狱中的艺术从业者和教育工作者进行访谈。它还涉及对监狱提供的短期艺术课程的民族志观察，以及对参与者创作的艺术品和公共领域提供的囚犯艺术的分析。该项目将包括组织一个重要的国际研讨会，让一系列从业者和利益相关者参与政策信息和研究主导的讨论，讨论囚犯艺术的未来。它将在沃里克艺术中心举办同类活动中规模最大的囚犯艺术节，由前囚犯艺术家共同制作。它还将在华威大学现代记录中心（Warwick’s Modern Records Centre）创建首个囚犯艺术数字档案，以促进未来的研究和更广泛地参与囚犯艺术。该项目还将制作一个网站，展示囚犯的艺术作品和项目的发现，并主持播客和博客文章，介绍囚犯的美学和成为囚禁艺术家的经历。学术产出将包括一本专著、两篇同行评议文章，以及以艺术为基础、囚犯主导和刑事司法平台的媒体产出。

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.