Curating Art Exhibitions in a prison environment and with victims of trauma

Sometimes I dream of having a modern sleek office space .. but that’s not been my story….A prison, rescue shelters and now an old woolshed.. this is a post about celebrating the creative processes while working in tough environments.

In 2015 while on a family trip of USA we visited Alcatraz Prison in San Fransisco and an exhibiton by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

This exhibition, resonated with me and the work that I was doing at the time.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Alcatraz, it housed some of America's most notorious offenders from 1934 to 1963. They were held under the most secure and regimented conditions, in the virtually escape-proof environment on a rocky island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

The only way to get to the Island is by boat , it is a site of Native American heritage and protest, and now one of America’s most visited national parks.

We were lucky enough to see, during our visit to the Island an art exhibition by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei which was held in parts of the prison itself.  In this exhibition created specifically for Alcatraz,  the artworks addressed the situation of people around the world who have been deprived of their freedom for speaking out about their beliefs — people like Ai himself.

A vocal critic of his nation’s government, Ai was secretly detained by Chinese authorities for 81 days in 2011, and only regained possession of his passport on July 22, 2015. As a result, the artist was unable to visit Alcatraz during the planning of this exhibition.

To me, I felt that , Weiwei’s exhibition celebrated free expression while working under severe constraints.

Having worked as an art tutor myself in a prison and in rescue shelters of victims of extreme human rights abuse,  I understood the constraints of creating art in an environment where you may not have access to running water , the art materials are limited, there may be no table or easel and you have to work on the floor and most importantly for safety reasons the space and freedom to create art in your own time is restricted.

I had also curated prison art auctions which posed their own problems.   When working with prison artists, ensuring that materials that were given to them were used specifically for the purpose of the exhibition and not used as currency in the prison or sent outside the wire, ensuring that I received the artworks when they were completed.  I also had to monitor all of the supplies given to each individual, and to work with Units in the prison to ensure each prison artist would have access to safe spaces for them to create their art.

The purpose of the art actions in the prison was to give the prisoners a voice while at the same time enabling them to give back to their communities which was an important part of their rehabilitation journey.  100% of the proceeds were donated to charity.

As part of the Alcatraz exhibition, Weiwei also gave the public an opportunity to voice their opinion and their feelings  by writing on postcards that were on tables throughout the main exhibition hall.  He invited the public to write directly to the people who his exhibition was about.

I loved this idea and later in 2015 after returning from working with Hagar NZ in a rescue shelter in Vietnam I used this myself.  A work colleague and I brought the girls artworks back to New Zealand with us along with the girls own personal stories of resilience and courage, of being trafficked and then escaping.

We auctioned the artworks off at an event while also telling their stories, the money raised went back to their team of psychologists in Vietnam to help keep the art program running.  Like Weiwei had done , I also created postcards of the girls artworks and invited the public who came to the exhibition to personally write back to the girls.  This made the girls feel heard, that their art had connected their personal stories with the public, and it also gave the public an opportunity to respond.  These were all important steps in the journey of the girls healing process, feeling validated, feeling heard.