Cell Scenes

Combating prisoner isolation and despair in Covid 24/7 Cell Restriction

Curated by S.Downham-Lotto

In-cell work by prisoners during Covid

Cell Scenes is a small portion of prisoner artwork created during Arts Lab’s 2020 Covid-response project, Prisoners Sharing the Light. The project involved S.Downham-Lotto and inmates at Dartmoor Prison, providing an insight into life behind bars during the Covid crisis.

Once a week, Sara met a senior prison officer in the local Tesco car park to exchange bin bags of 20 large brown envelopes. Inside, was the work of convicted male criminals serving their time on the bleak moor. After a Covid-safe period of quarantine, Sara took the envelopes back to her studio, photographed the artwork and created individual posters to return to each of the 20 prisoners to pin up on their cell walls.

Each week, the group was given a different theme to respond to. This exhibition shows 5 male prisoners’ responses to the theme “Inside My Cell”.

Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, Prisoners Sharing the Light provided time-passing activities and a creative outlet for prisoners adapting to contact restrictions, locked up in cells 23-24 hours a day. Issues of isolation and anxiety had been a serious issue.

Danny Branley, head of learning skills and employment at HMP Dartmoor, said:

‘At this time, we have developed a huge number of in-cell activities for the prisoners. Arts Lab’s Sharing the Light is the one thing we do that allows the prisoners to express themselves freely, that isn’t ticking boxes in exercise books and helps them to offload anxieties such as missing family. There is no question, that it is helping to reduce incidents of self-harm and suicide inside the prison already, creating an overall sense of calm and positivity in the prison environment.’

One ex-prisoner commented on a completed artwork:

‘The work really speaks to me on a personal level. Even though I’m now on the outside, it makes me think about all the prisoners who will be spending Christmas behind bars away from their families. Whether they’re guilty, innocent, there by their own choosing or because of someone else, my thoughts will be of those who will spend Christmas in a cell. I’ll be sure to make the most of my first Christmas in five years with my family.’

To see more prisoner artwork created with Arts Lab, go to the Gallery for: Can’t Sleep with a Storm in Your Head; Art as Collaboration; Shared Purpose, Shared Hope.