Case Study Koestler 2

Visited the Koestler Trust today, just at the entrance to Wormwood Scrubs. It is housed in what was the Governor's residence, and is now a very functional and patched up building. I was shown around and given an insight into the Trust's activities - already the artworks are arriving and piling up for this year's award. After I am fully processed and checked out, I will help sort out all the hundreds of artworks according to their system.

I am especially interested in the stage where I can write feedback to the artists about their work. They manage to give feedback to about 70% of nearly 6,000 works, so I would hope to contribute to bettering that. It will be rapid assessment, summing up work quickly, with the aim of encouraging the artist to continue, and recognising their effort.

Already it has been interesting and valuable. I have seen dozens of pieces, some of which were quite striking. There will inevitably be a certain amount of discretion in this project - some people I met today told me they were exoffenders who had involvement with Koestler while in prison, and now are employed there. There are issues about anonymity. If the artists put their name to their work it is at their own risk. 

As I was told from people who know, the one thing you have in prison is time, and some of the work represents that - long hours of sculpting; painting and drawing in intense detail. The work is mainly amateur, although of course the prison population is populated by many, including those with some art experience or expertise already, making it a particular type of amateur art. The time, the anonymity question, the hope, the lifeline it all represents, make prison art a particular genre of art. I'll have more to say on this later.

On my way home, being in West London, I dropped into Kensington and Chelsea College to pick up my teaching certificate waiting there. They happened to have an exhibition up of offender art - prison art by current inmates. This coincidental exhibition had many of the hallmarks of the Koestler enterprise - mostly unnamed artists, and some imagery of incarceration and escapism. Above all, it is similar to many group shows of adult education to foundation level. What one looks for in prison art is potential. Who is going to put it all together and create more than the sum of current conditions? Which ones will overcome art as therapy and continue the artist journey?

Not all naive art, or outsider, but art for a purpose, framed within purpose.

Padley Gorgeous,  Long Lartin, HM Prison

http://www.koestlertrust.org.uk/pages/exhib2010gal1.html(accessed 13th April 2011)

13th April 2011