10.9.19
B-Wing's community collaborative works
Fiona Campbell
Community engagement and collaboration are key.
We’ve been engaging community groups making work to be featured as part of our exhibition. I worked alongside a group of Year 9 students at Whitstone School, while Luminara worked with local Home Ed families, making small hand sized artworks.
We’ve been engaging community groups making work to be featured as part of our exhibition. I worked alongside a group of Year 9 students at Whitstone School, while Luminara worked with local Home Ed families, making small hand sized artworks.
The concept behind these small-scale works relates to art in prison:
'The number of hours an inmate takes to make an artwork contributes to its value... the greater the number of hours the more valuable the piece... participants exchange cartons and packs of cigarettes on these grounds.
Art supplies are hard to get, so inmates scavenge for throwaways. Bones from birds and rats, peach pits, broken mirror pieces, cardboard, scrap metal, handkerchiefs and other materials become recycled into objects of love, affection and power. Artists who work from found objects are considered most creative and are said to be ‘trip’n’ - being freed up or engaged in the creative process.
Because of size limitations for handicraft items, most art will fit comfortably in one’s hand. These satisfy departmental procedures but are also easily concealed and transported - often carried in a pocket for exchange & purchase.’ Tom Skelly, On the Yard
'The number of hours an inmate takes to make an artwork contributes to its value... the greater the number of hours the more valuable the piece... participants exchange cartons and packs of cigarettes on these grounds.
Art supplies are hard to get, so inmates scavenge for throwaways. Bones from birds and rats, peach pits, broken mirror pieces, cardboard, scrap metal, handkerchiefs and other materials become recycled into objects of love, affection and power. Artists who work from found objects are considered most creative and are said to be ‘trip’n’ - being freed up or engaged in the creative process.
Because of size limitations for handicraft items, most art will fit comfortably in one’s hand. These satisfy departmental procedures but are also easily concealed and transported - often carried in a pocket for exchange & purchase.’ Tom Skelly, On the Yard
The students hadn’t made anything like this before, and the use of recycled materials made them ‘think more about everyday objects’, which they found ‘inspiring and surprising’.
I also really enjoyed working with 2 adult groups creating collaborative pieces, based around possessions, identity, marking time, time as value, binding, bound. The 2 adult groups worked together at The Art Bank for 2 evenings in July and August, where ‘conversations became the threads that made our connections’ (workshop participant).
Later, I bumped into one of our workshop participants Dawn Handy at Hauser & Wirth Somerset’s ‘Unconscious Landscape’ exhibition. The work in this show inspired much of what we made, so it was serendipitous that we should meet there. I took a photo of Dawn & baby by Sonia Gomes’s ’No 4’.
The work from all 4 community groups will be on show in the cells at B Wing during our exhibition, where participants can see their work alongside our own.
During Art Weeks we’re looking forward to engaging other schools and youth groups in free workshops/artist tours as part of the prison’s educational offer.
During Art Weeks we’re looking forward to engaging other schools and youth groups in free workshops/artist tours as part of the prison’s educational offer.