In a low whitewashed outbuilding on the grounds of HMP Grendon, near a double row of tall barbed wire fences, the image of a cowboy with the head of David Bowie with Elvis’ orange mullet cuts a surreal figure. The painting announces a new studio and art gallery in Europe’s only fully therapeutic prison, where 260 inmates, 70% of whom receive life sentences, spend five days a week in therapy, confronting their crimes. “We are the only prison in the country that does not have a segregation unit but has an art gallery,” says Richard Shuker, Grendon’s head of clinical services.
The Bowie/Elvis work is part of artist Dean Kelland’s exhibition Imposter Syndrome; It is the fruit of a nearly five-year residency organized by Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery at the category B all-male prison in rural Buckinghamshire. A group of us walked through massive chain-link fences, past security gates and a search dog, to visit Kelland’s show, along with a display of inmates’ artwork. Despite all these precautions, an atmosphere of celebration prevails, where prisoners, prison staff and guards gather, chat and admire the works.
Paintings by Noel Gallagher, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, vibrant hummingbirds, rainbow flowers, peace sign prints, and drawings of moths and bees fill the lounge-style walls. A disturbing canvas depicts a shaved head with prison bars running across the facial skin and twisting into a grimace. “It’s about how the prison environment gets inside you, no matter how much you oppose it,” says its creator, N from D wing. The men speak very clearly about their work; This is no surprise, given the time they spend in small groups forensically examining crimes ranging from armed robbery and rape to child abuse and murder.
Above our heads, a large, monochrome self-portrait shows a prisoner lifting the front panel of his face to reveal a frightened child clutching his knees in an empty prison cell. Another canvas shows a chained prisoner with a hammer inside a brick head, smashing his way to freedom. “I made a series of pictures of what is inside, behind the masks we wear all the time,” a prisoner from C wing, identified as B, told me.
B has been in institutions since the age of 11. But inmates say Grendon is different: It lacks the hierarchy and violence of ordinary prisons. “There are no fights here, people can express themselves,” says a prisoner who writes poetry notes. “In other prisons you are seen as weak in this regard and you open yourself up to bullying.” Grendon was founded in 1962 as a radical prison experiment, divided into five wings (communities) of around 40 men plus an induction unit. Inmates must apply to join the prison and be evaluated for up to six months before they can begin four years of intensive treatment. Some cannot handle the extreme scrutiny and demand to go back to what they know; however, statistics from criminological studies show that inmates who complete at least 18 months of treatment in Grendon are 20% to 25% less likely to reoffend than in traditional prisons.
“Prison can re-traumatize people, and if you don’t address it, it will continue,” said a female therapist (or facilitator, as they are called in Grendon). “You have to believe that people change. I saw it.” Shuker agrees: “What’s unique here is that everyone feels like they’re part of a common goal. They want to make it happen. At Grendon, we say: ‘This is your prison, you’re responsible for making it safe, resolve your differences.'”
Every decision, including the selection of the resident artist, is made democratically by vote. Kelland describes interviewing the men before they were accepted into the program. “One of them asked me what my work was about, and I told him ‘flawed masculinity, cycles of failure.’ And he said: ‘Then you’re in the best place. You can’t find more fault here than here.’”
But Kelland, who describes himself as “a working-class lad from Greater Barr”, arrived without trial with a mandate to support prisoners in their artistic pursuits and make work about the experience. The prints, collages and films they jointly developed are testament to the trust they managed to build within the prison community. Masks are a central motif of Kelland’s show; partly because the men featured in the show had to be identified, and because Kelland was interested in the idea of social veneer, which dovetails neatly with the fact that much of the psychodrama to which men are subjected involves masks. .
Among the most powerful works in Imposter Syndrome is Absolute Beginners (2022), a multi-channel video installation featuring portraits of men wearing neutral masks. This film, shot in semi-darkness, shows the moment when each of them confronts their reflections in the mirror in some cases where they have not been able to see themselves for years. Most of the men struggle to hold their own gaze through the eye holes of the white mask, and soon they look down or away. “It was really worrying,” N told me. “I felt like I was being stripped naked. “I felt some sadness for spending my life in armor and masks.” In Icon, where the main version of Impostor Syndrome is displayed, images of men are projected onto a monolithic black cylinder and the viewer is forced to walk around them to see them, mimicking the circular flow of the prison activity area.
The level of inmates’ interest in Kelland’s work is evident in the dialogue wall the artist installed in Grendon and reproduced in the Ikon exhibition. You can see how ideas come to life and proliferate as Kelland collects notes and images and jots down the men’s responses. Elvis became an important touchstone, embodying both the male ideal and its failure. Photos of the singer alongside Grayson Perry, Boy George, Tupac Shakur and Bowie indicate an intense search for male role models. However, David Beckham did not qualify and has a giant cross on his face.
The filmed performance So the Days Float Through My Eyes (2023) marks the culmination of Kelland’s collaboration with the prisoners. A group of men wearing screen-printed Bowie masks (including Kelland) stand in a silent row. They take turns stepping forward and holding signs bearing lyrics from Bowie’s 1971 hit Changes, which poignantly resonate with their state of incarceration: “I never looked how others saw the pretender” and “So I turned my face to myself.” ”. Kelland had originally planned to have the men throw away the signs, but they told him that didn’t work. “For me, it’s the little victories where they feel like they have authorship and can say, ‘No, Dean, do it this way,'” the artist says. “This was a huge deal.”
The prison artist residency program was launched by the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust in 2011, and Ikon joined the program in 2014. The gallery has since expanded the program by bringing a producer, James Latunji-Cockbill, to the prison. Kelland led the establishment of the art studio and gallery in Grendon. According to Latunji-Cockbill, this changed the goalposts and goal of the project: “As our group’s artwork evolved into more of a fine arts practice, we found that traditional prison arts and crafts had almost fallen by the wayside.” In addition to assisting the prisoners with painting and drawing, Kelland set up a press for screen printing and invited other artists to teach them how to engrave. Having seen its tremendous benefits, Ikon hopes to implement this workshop model in other prisons.
At the symposium held after the exhibition screening, many prisoners give speeches about how working with Kelland transformed their art and their lives. “Every Wednesday when I come to the workshop, I am reminded that I am not just a criminal, I have a voice through art,” says M from wing A, who has won the annual silver medal for the last two years at the Koestler prison art awards for his textile work. M’s entry this year was a pair of blue fabric therapy chairs that she sewed with bright yellow words used in counseling sessions. “For me, it was about the chairs talking about all the people sitting in them and talking about their lives. “These chairs hold many secrets,” he explains. Similarly, B from C wing speaks poignantly about how valuable it is to receive constructive feedback on his art. “Prison is a harsh place – normally people say, ‘Fuck you, you asshole’ – but working with someone in the arts is healthy, it nourishes the soul. “That’s what drives us forward, being part of something much bigger than ourselves.”
As we are led out of the prison complex under towering, triffid-like lights, rabbits scurry incongruously around the edges of the manicured lawns. It seems indisputable that art and therapy can play a big role in rehabilitation. Kelland is pleased with what he and Ikon have achieved: “We have prisoners who will leave after working with us, see the opportunity to work in creative practice and even call themselves artists. This will work for me.”