Sarah Armstrong is a visiting scholar at the Centre and is working on this project. She will be giving a talk on it at the Centre in January. Sarah is also a contributor to a great blog about this research. Here is a link to her blog.
And here is the press release describing an exhibition about this project.
Rethinking Prison through Art and Research
A unique collaboration
between art and academia offers new insights into what punishment is and how it
works. Glasgow-based artist Jenny Wicks spent nine months working alongside
criminologists from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research
(SCCJR), University of Glasgow.
The
results will be showcased at HMP Barlinnie and The Briggait Gallery in an
installation/exhibition that incorporates film broadcast on surveillance
monitors, audio and large format fine art photography.
Wicks
gained unprecedented access to prisons across Scotland including HMP Low Moss,
Scotland’s newest prison, prior to its opening for ‘business’. Through
photographic imagery and audiowork Jenny’s collaborative project discovers and
explores some of the hidden parts of punishment.
Wicks
commented, “Much of the work on prisons, what influences our understanding of
what they are like, is a kind of gritty realism found in stereotypical pictures
of cell doors or exercise yards.”
She
continued, “I was interested to see that both myself as an artist and the
criminologists who research this stuff wanted to challenge these stock images and
show the experience of punishment in a different way.”
A unique
aspect of this project was its inclusion not just of prisoners but also prison
staff, governors and criminologists in a series of ‘mugshot’ portraits. These were
made using traditional photography techniques that required subjects to sit
without moving for an extended period. The result are a set of peaceful faces
any of which might be of a criminal, a guard or a scientist. Set alongside
images of the prison’s interior, the viewer is asked to think about whether
this is the place of someone’s sentence, day at the office or research site.
Professor
Fergus McNeill, a leading expert on rehabilitation, and one of the mugshot
subjects, noted, “So much of how prisons are presented in society make
prisoners out to be different from ‘normal’ people. But you can see in these
photos a gentleness and even sadness or innocence in them. All of us do harm
and all of us can help or heal. I really believe that the effectiveness of
criminal justice depends on breaking down the barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
Jenny’s art goes some way towards doing this.”
Senior
Research Fellow Dr Sarah Armstrong, another criminologist involved in the project,
said, “We are limited as researchers in how we communicate. We can write any
number of reports and point to statistics about the effectiveness of prison
sentences. Jenny’s project transcends paperwork to show vividly how prison can
be so many things at once – terrifying, boring, punitive and rehabilitating.
This project makes clear how much potential there is for research in looking at
things more creatively.”
Wicks
said: “As the residency progressed I was constantly struck by the co-existence
of the shocking and the ordinary that marks the experience of punishment.
“Suicide
watch cells, the back of a prisoner transport van, a storage room holding
physical restraint chairs and Zimmer frames mark sites of extreme human
experience, and yet at the same time are part of someone’s day at the office.
Exploring this dynamic tension was a key aim of the project.”
The
project, entitled ‘Working Spaces, Punishing Spaces: The Meaning and
Construction of Place through Criminological Research’ was funded by the
Leverhulme Trust and Creative Scotland.
After
launching at HMP Barlinnie on 7 November the exhibition will travel to a number
of other prisons prior to its public show at The Briggait Gallery,
Glasgow 27 February – 3 March 2013. An ongoing project blog seeks to
involve anyone interested in these issues: http://punishingphotography.wordpress.com/
ENDS
EXHIBITION VENUES AND DATES
Private
Showings: HMP Barlinnie* 7-21
November 2012
HMP Greenock early 2013
HMP Shotts early 2013
HMP Low Moss early 2013
*Press
access can be arranged.
Public
Exhibition: The Briggait (Glasgow) 27
Feb-23 Mar 2013
Opening Night (all welcome) 1 Mar 2013, 6:30-8:30
The Briggait is located at 141 Bridgegate, Glasgow G1 5HZ. Opening hours
are Mon-Fri from 10 am to 6 pm; Saturdays from 12 pm to 6 pm. Admission is free
and open to all.