The Curious Symbiosis Between Art And Imprisonment

Artful Punishment: The Curious Symbiosis Between Art And Imprisonment Presented by: Mrs. Chamberlen Date: 16 March 2023 Background - How I got to this: • From the sociology rather than arts side  Public engagement with imprisonment heavily relies on the medium of art.  Art can arguably derive empathy - it may have critical potential  How can the effects of imprisonment be communicated in more accessible ways? Does an arts-based methodology in engaging the public with issues of punishment promise a more successful political, activist agenda that can comprehensively challenge our carceral obsessions?  But there is also an uncomfortable tension there • Prison sociology has also remained relatively quiet about prison art, both as theme and method. Research Questions - The links between prison and art: what are the affective and structural arrangements that enable the arts to infiltrate prison walls and to play an important role in the everyday lives of those who engage with it? - How might we study the punishment-arts relationship and what are the key theoretical and methodological considerations when doing so? - What is prison art's political viability? To what extent might we see art having an emancipatory potential to resist and comprehensively critique carceral contexts? What might be challenges and implications of this political nature of art? Context: Art In Prisons Programs & Art Therapies - Co-opting art in the name of effective punishment: • The psychoanalytic, philosophical and policy rationales that have contributed to the development of prison art programs. • Art as therapy and rehabilitation & the utilization of art by prison authorities: links between artistic practice and desistance and the out-sourcing of such rehabilitation to the 'third sector'. • A form of 'decorative justice' (Cheliotis 2012; 2014) that is increasingly reliant on "quantifiable and positive' outcomes linked to desistance in order to preserve 'public acceptability' (Cox & Gelsthorpe 2012). Context 2: The "Prison Arts" In The Art World - A taken-for-granted acceptance of the link between isolation, incarceration and creative production; an idealized and unquestioned relationship - A fetishization of isolation's links to creativity at the expense of the role of punishment - Art in prison - a historical glance • Art as depiction of suffering • Art as escape • Art as survival & resistance  Colonial prisons and political prisoners  Prison writing and political activism from prison/camps  The criminalization of Avant Garde artists - Yet, prison art as genre absent from art history and much of art analysis. - Art during lockdown... Doing Art In 'Challenging Times’ - "To find inspiration whilst in quarantine, we can look to artists who have created art whilst imprisoned" - "The advice I have for those who are creating their work, particularly that work that is rooted in the personal-political, is that our communities need you. We need each other always, but your voice, your art, your videos, your poetry, your music, your love, passion and even anger can help others feel less isolated, less alone, less uncertain. The only way we'll get through collective isolation is together, and art is such a powerful tool to help us through challenging times." Josh Rivers (creator and host of the podcast 'Busy Being Black') from Tate Talking Point 'Making Art in Isolation'. The Prisoner Artist: Representations Of Individual Engagements With Art - Artist biographies largely invisibles unless of a particular political profile or artist has prior cultural capital - Fleetwood (2020: 3): • Art "exists in relation to economies, power structures, governing resources and access, and discourses that legitimate certain works as art, others as craft, material object, historical artifacts, or trash". The Basis For A Theory Of The Art- Punishment Relation - This is an antagonistic relationship reliant on the desire to express oneself - Art in prison as a desired good because of affective experiences of pain and loss - The consumptive or addictive power of art in prison and its manipulation by the authorities • The 'need for art in prisons and its risk of extending the daily pains of imprisonment Crafting A Theory Of Prison Arts: Elucidating The Links Between The Arts And Imprisonment - The embodied and affective nature of both art and punishment • Centrality of the body on the expressive choices and content of prison art • Pain: the substantive link  Art as medium for the expression of pain • Fleetwood (2020): prison arts central to discussions of coping and survival in prison - The intersubjective and aesthetic appreciation of lived time, space & self enabled by both • The importance of embodiment to an appreciation of the identities and biographies of prison artists (a search for recognition) • We perceive socially and creatively: we need to express and communicate our experiences. Crafting A Theory Of Prison Arts - A structural and realist perspective on the economies of affect at play and the interests and motivations of the institutions and powers enabling art in prison. - When theorizing prison art, we ought to remain vigilant of its potential risks too. • The aesthetic incapacitation of prison artists and particularly former prisoner artists • The imprint of punishment into art in and beyond prisons; deliberate, strategic choice or authentic expression of the pains of imprisonment? • Can we then politically utilize prison art? A kind of strategic essentialism in prison art and artists. - The unfulfilled promise of art in prison: The implications of the curious symbiosis between art and imprisonment • Managing the discursive obstacles: both art and punishment can be difficult to talk about. • Emancipation or mere representation? • Are prison artists able to enjoy recognition? • Moving beyond the co-optation of prison art by the prison industrial complex • Prioritizing the artist not the art: How prison sociology can be instrumental in the crafting of a politically activist reading of prisoner art Methodological Comments - How do engage the arts in sociological research on prisons: • Engaging with art history, aesthetics and seeing what the sociology of art can offer to prison sociologists. (Carrabine 2018) • Asking questions about authorship, authenticity and symbolism and their links to carceral experiences. • Semiotics in reading prisoner artwork. Learning to read the art and considering curations of it in prison sociology  Eco's categorization: the intention of the artist; the intention of the art; the intention of the spectator - transference? • Can art be social research data? What are the obstacles of doing so? Acknowledging the complex history of prison art as 'data' in criminology (e.g. Lombroso's study of prison graffiti and sculpture in order to gain insights into the 'prison type'). Methodological Issues With The Representation Of Prison Art - Visibility of prison in galleries. The implications of exhibiting art from inside into the outside world. - Which art is more visible? Should sociological readings of such art pass aesthetic judgment? Who is left out of the celebrated prison arts? Conclusion: The Prison – Art Relation - It can help situate the emergence and proliferation of arts programs and art therapy in prison; prime examples of the ambivalence with which authorities approach rehabilitation - It can highlight the role and impact of such creative and therapeutic practices and inform a discussion on the future of the prion arts in penal and forensic contexts. - It can elaborate discussions of representations of punishment today and in the past. Prison art can speak about the lived experiences and pains of imprisonment and act as potential data. Conclusion: The Symbiotic Relationship - Contradictory phenomena but both are dependent on the channelling of the lived experience of pain and loss. - Origins & Foundation of this relationship: This painful symbiosis is traceable in the embodied and affective nature of both prison and the arts. - The implications of the relationship: A dissonance between the production of art in prisons being a form of internal coping, while the products of this art have likely audiences outside of • Theorizing the artist-spectator relation & the implication of various intermediaries • Prison arts' risks, contradictions and their promise. • Artists are often aesthetically, economically and socially incapacitated; we need a structurally aware and realistic account on the potential of the prison arts to transform the lives of these artists. • Emancipatory potential: for the artist and for the audience