by In a low, whitewashed outbuilding in the grounds of HMP Grendon, near double rows of high barbed wire fences, an image of Elvis as a cowboy wearing David Bowie’s orange mullet creates a surreal figure. The image advertises a new studio-art gallery in Europe’s only fully therapeutic prison, where 260 inmates (70% of them sentenced to life imprisonment) spend five days a week in therapy to confront their crimes. “We are the only prison in the country that doesn’t have a segregation unit but has an art gallery,” says Grendon’s head of clinical services, Richard Shuker.
The Bowie/Elvis work is part of an exhibition titled Imposter Syndrome by artist Dean Kelland, the result of a nearly five-year residency organized by Ikon Gallery in Birmingham at the category B men’s prison, located in the Buckinghamshire countryside. A group of us have broken through those huge chain-link fences, past security gates and a sniffer dog to visit the Kelland show along with a presentation of the inmates’ artwork. Despite all these precautions, there is an atmosphere of celebration as inmates, prison staff and guards gather, chat and admire the works.
Paintings by Noel Gallagher, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, vibrant hummingbirds, rainbow flowers, prints of peace signs, sketches of moths and bees crowd the walls, salon-style. A haunting canvas depicts a shaved head with prison bars growing through the skin of the face, which twists into a grimace. “It’s about how the prison environment is woven into you, no matter how much you reject it,” says its creator, N from D Wing. The men are very vocal about their work, which is no surprise given the time they spend in small groups forensically analyzing their crimes, which range from armed robbery and rape to child abuse and murder.
High above our heads, a large monochrome self-portrait shows an inmate removing the front panel of his face to reveal a frightened boy clutching his knees in an empty cell. Another canvas shows a chained prisoner with a hammer inside a head made of bricks, fighting his way to freedom. “I made a series of paintings about what’s inside, behind the masks that we wear all the time,” an inmate identified as B from the C wing tells me.
B has been in institutions since he was 11 years old. But Grendon is different, inmates say: He lacks the hierarchies and violence of regular prisons. “There are no fights here, people can express themselves,” says an inmate who writes poetry. “In other prisons, you would be considered weak for that and you would be exposed to harassment.” Grendon was founded in 1962 as a radical prison experiment and is divided into five wings (communities) of about 40 men plus an induction unit. Inmates must apply to prison and spend up to six months being evaluated before they can begin intensive four-year therapy. Some cannot overcome the extreme scrutiny and request to go back to what they know, but statistics from criminological studies show that inmates who complete at least 18 months of therapy at Grendon are 20 to 25% less likely to reoffend than at conventional prisons.
“Prison can re-traumatize people and if the problem is not addressed, the problem will continue,” a therapist (or facilitator, as they call them in Grendon) tells me. “You have to believe that people change. I’ve seen it.” Shuker agrees: “What’s unique here is that everyone feels part of a shared goal. They want it to work. At Grendon we say: ‘This is your prison, you are responsible for making it safe, fix your problems.’ differences’”.
Every decision is made democratically, through voting, including the election of the resident artist. Kelland recounts his interview with the men before being accepted into the plan. “One of them asked me what my job was about and I said ‘flawed masculinity, cycles of failure.’ And he said, ‘Well, then you’re in the best place.’ You will not find more defects than what are here.’”
But Kelland, who describes himself as “a working-class boy from Great Barr”, arrived without judgment, with the task of supporting the inmates in their artistic pursuits and working on the experience. The prints, collages and films they have developed collaboratively are testament to the trust he has managed to build in the prison community. Masks are a central motif in Kelland’s show, partly because of the requirement to anonymize the men who appear in it and because he is interested in the idea of social veneers, which fits perfectly with the fact that much of the psychodrama that men’s experience involves masks. .
Among Imposter Syndrome’s most powerful works is a multi-channel video installation, Absolute Beginners (2022), featuring portraits of men wearing neutral masks. Filmed in semi-darkness, it shows the moment in which each person confronts their reflection in a mirror after years of not seeing each other in some cases. Most men struggle to maintain their gaze through the eye holes of the white mask, and soon look down or away. “It was really disconcerting,” N tells me. “I felt like I had been stripped naked. “I felt a pang of sadness that I had spent my life wearing the armor and the masks.” At Ikon, where the main version of imposter syndrome is on display, images of men are projected onto a monolithic black cylinder and the viewer is forced to walk around it to see them, mimicking the circular flow of the school’s activity yard. prison.
The level of commitment of inmates to Kelland’s work is evident in a dialogue wall the artist installed in Grendon, reproduced in the Ikon exhibition. You can see how ideas materialized and proliferated there as Kelland posted notes and images and the men wrote down his responses. Elvis has been an important touchstone, embodying both the masculine ideal and its failure. Photos of the singer alongside Grayson Perry, Boy George, Tupac Shakur and Bowie point to an intense exploration of male role models. David Beckham, however, did not measure up 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 inmates. A motley group of men in screen-printed Bowie masks (including Kelland) form a silent line. They step forward in turn, holding signs with lyrics from Bowie’s 1971 hit, Changes, that seem poignantly resonant with his imprisoned status: “I’ve never glimpsed how others must see the faker” and “So I turned to face him.” look at me.” ”. Kelland originally planned to have the men discard the signs, but was told that didn’t work. “It’s those little victories for me where they felt like they had ownership and were able to say, ‘No, Dean, do it this way,’” the artist says. “That’s been huge.”
The Prison Artist Residency was launched in 2011 by the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust and Ikon joined in 2014. The gallery has since expanded the scope of the program, installing a producer in the prison, James Latunji-Cockbill, who with Kelland spearheaded the establishment of the art studio and gallery in Grendon. It has changed the goals and ambition of the project, according to Latunji-Cockbill: “We have seen traditional prison arts and crafts almost fall by the wayside as our group’s artwork has become more of a practice. of fine arts”. In addition to helping inmates with painting and drawing, Kelland set up a printing press for screen printing and invited other artists to teach them printmaking. Having seen the enormous benefits, Ikon hopes to implement this workshop model in other prisons.
At a symposium held after viewing the exhibition, several prisoners give speeches about how working with Kelland has transformed their art and their lives. “Every Wednesday, when I come to the workshop, I remember that I am not just a criminal: I have a voice through art,” says M, from wing A, who has won silver for the last two years in the annual Koestler Awards competition of prison art for his textile works. M’s piece this year was a pair of blue fabric therapy chairs that he had sewn with bright yellow words used in counseling sessions. “For me it was about the chairs talking about all the people who sat in them and talked about their lives. “Those chairs keep a lot of secrets,” he explains. Likewise, B from C wing speaks movingly about how valuable it has been to receive constructive feedback on his art. “Prison is an abrasive place; Normally people will say, ‘Fuck you, you moron,’ but working with someone in the arts is healthy, it nourishes the soul. This is 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 scamper incongruously across the manicured grass verges. It seems indisputable that art and therapy can play a very important role in rehabilitation. Kelland, for his part, is pleased with what he and Ikon have achieved: “What we have are prisoners who will stop working with us, who will see the possibility of working in creative practice and may even call themselves artists. “That will be enough for me.”
