The Artists' Prison

The Artists' Prison
Title The Artists' Prison PDF eBook
Author Alexandra Grant
Publisher
Total Pages 157
Release 2017
Genre Artists' books
ISBN 9780998861616

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The Artists' Prison looks askance at the workings of personality and privilege, sexuality, authority, and artifice in the art world. Imagined through the heavily redacted testimony of the prison's warden, written by Alexandra Grant, and powerfully allusive images by Eve Wood, the prison is a brutal, Kafkaesque landscape where creativity can be a criminal offence and sentences range from the allegorical to the downright absurd. In The Artists' Prison, the act of creating becomes a strangely erotic condemnation, as well as a means of punishment and transformation. It is in these very transformations--sometimes dubious, sometimes oddly sentimental--that the book's critical edge is sharpest. In structural terms, The Artists' Prison represents a unique visual and literary intersection, in which Wood's drawings open spaces of potential meaning in Grant's text, and the text, in turn, acts as a framework in which the images can resonate and intensify in significance.

Marking Time

Marking Time
Title Marking Time PDF eBook
Author Nicole R. Fleetwood
Publisher Harvard University Press
Total Pages 350
Release 2020-04-28
Genre Art
ISBN 067491922X

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"A powerful document of the inner lives and creative visions of men and women rendered invisible by America’s prison system. More than two million people are currently behind bars in the United States. Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals, America’s prisons are filled with art. Despite the isolation and degradation they experience, the incarcerated are driven to assert their humanity in the face of a system that dehumanizes them. Based on interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated artists, prison visits, and the author’s own family experiences with the penal system, Marking Time shows how the imprisoned turn ordinary objects into elaborate works of art. Working with meager supplies and in the harshest conditions—including solitary confinement—these artists find ways to resist the brutality and depravity that prisons engender. The impact of their art, Fleetwood observes, can be felt far beyond prison walls. Their bold works, many of which are being published for the first time in this volume, have opened new possibilities in American art. As the movement to transform the country’s criminal justice system grows, art provides the imprisoned with a political voice. Their works testify to the economic and racial injustices that underpin American punishment and offer a new vision of freedom for the twenty-first century."

Cellblock Visions

Cellblock Visions
Title Cellblock Visions PDF eBook
Author Phyllis Kornfeld
Publisher
Total Pages 86
Release 1997-01
Genre Art
ISBN 9780691029764

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Filled with quotes from men and women prisoners and Kornfeld's own anecdotes, Cellblock Visions shows how these artists, most of them having no previous training, turn to their work for a sense of self-worth, an opportunity to vent rage, or a way to find peace. We see how the artists deal with the cramped space, limited light, and narrow vistas of their prison studios, and how the security bans on many art supplies lead them to ingenious resourcefulness, as in extracting color from shampoo and weaving with cigarette wrappers. Kornfeld covers the traditional prison arts, such as soap carving and tattoo, and devotes a major section to painting, where we see miniatures depicting themes of alienation and escape, idyllic landscapes framed by bars, portraits of women living in a fantasy world, large canvasses filled with erotic and religious symbolism and violent action. The brief, vivid biographies of each artist portray that individual's experience of crime, prison, and art itself.

Performing Arts in Prisons

Performing Arts in Prisons
Title Performing Arts in Prisons PDF eBook
Author Michael Balfour
Publisher Intellect Books
Total Pages 280
Release 2019-07-15
Genre Social Science
ISBN 1789380162

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Across the world, performing arts programmes are increasing in number, scope and professionalism. They attract increasing academic and media attention. Theoretical and applied research, organizational evaluation reports, documentary films and journalism are detailing prison arts and creating recognition that this body of work is becoming a valued part of the correctional enterprise. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests music, theatre, poetry and dance can contribute to prisoner wellbeing, management, rehabilitation and reintegration. Performing Arts in Prisons: Creative Perspectives explores prison arts in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Chile, and creates a new framework for understanding its practices.

128-G

128-G
Title 128-G PDF eBook
Author Nate Fish
Publisher
Total Pages
Release 2020-11
Genre
ISBN 9780578750224

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128-G is a collection of art and writing from inmates at Calipatria State Prison in Southern California. Topics in the book range from art to sex to science and philosophy to criminal justice reform to American culture. "What you have in your hands is not only a collection of art, but a collection of voices," Joel Baptiste, one of the inmates, says about the book. "[We] have amazing stories if you're willing to look and listen." 128-G consists of scans of original artifacts from inside Calipatria - drawings on paper, napkins and other found materials, typed and handwritten letters, birthday cards, and powerful photos from filmmaker Danny Dwyer. All the material in 128-G come from Words Uncaged, a non-profit organization running art and writing programs in several California prisons. Visit www.wordsuncaged.org to learn more about the organization.

Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration

Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration
Title Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration PDF eBook
Author Ashley E. Lucas
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages 272
Release 2020-09-03
Genre Performing Arts
ISBN 1408185911

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Obscured behind concrete and razor wire, the lives of the incarcerated remain hidden from public view. Inside the walls, imprisoned people all over the world stage theatrical productions that enable them to assert their humanity and capabilities. Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration offers a uniquely international account and exploration of prison theatre. By discussing a range of performance practices tied to incarceration, this book examines the ways in which arts practitioners and imprisoned people use theatre as a means to build communities, attain professional skills, create social change, and maintain hope. Ashley Lucas's writing offers a distinctive blend of storytelling, performance analysis, travelogue, and personal experience as the child of an incarcerated father. Distinct examples of theatre performed in prisons are explored throughout the main text and also in a section of Critical Perspectives by international scholars and practitioners.

Razor Wire Women

Razor Wire Women
Title Razor Wire Women PDF eBook
Author Jodie Michelle Lawston
Publisher SUNY Press
Total Pages 372
Release 2011-04-11
Genre Social Science
ISBN 1438435312

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Collection of essays and art by scholars, artists and activists both in and out of prison that reveal the many dimensions of women’s incarcerated experiences.