Combating prisoner isolation and despair during Covid 24/7 cell restriction
Curated by Sara Downham-Lotto
In-cell work by prisoners in collaboration with S.Downham-Lotto during Covid
This art project at Dartmoor Prison gave prisoners and artist, Sara Downham-Lotto, a shared sense of purpose and hope during Covid.
Sara was leader of Arts Lab’s Prisoners Sharing the Light, an art project for 20 male prisoners at HMP Dartmoor, started in April 2020 as a response to the Covid crisis. Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and the Prison, the project addressed the immediate needs of prisoners adapting to contact restrictions, solitarily locked up in cells 23-24 hours a day. Sharing the Light provided a creative outlet and helped to reduce the increasing sense of isolation and anxiety amongst male prisoners. What made the project special was the opportunity for participants to collaborate with a professional artist, and through abstract art experiments, to express themselves. Sara brought inclusive art teaching and facilitation through weekly briefs delivered individually to each prisoner in brown envelopes. Each week had a different theme, such as ‘What Matters to Me’, ‘Blue’, ‘View from my Cell’ and ‘Black & White’.
Every week, envelopes were returned to Sara filled with art. In her studio, she then emptied the contents of each package and arranged them into collages – both manually and digitally – 20 in all. The work was then photographed and sent to the local printer where it is made into posters. The posters were returned to each prisoner with their weekly packages as a positive reminder of shared creative purpose and to help brighten their cell walls.
‘At a time when creativity is becoming increasingly valued as a force for good, I have a clear sense of purpose: to use abstract art to inspire creative thinking and transformation across communities, whilst growing her own practice as a painter. For me, art and teaching are interconnected practices – the one feeding the other. People and process-led and experimental in approach, I work primarily with paper and mixed media. My collage technique, layering material from workshops and discarded paintings, emits an upbeat joyousness through colour, bold, abstract forms and repeating pattern. Each work then becomes a palimpsest of my own and others’ past experiences in the act of making art.’
Artwork (top to bottom):
Prison Blues
View From My Cell 1, 2 & 3
The Fish That Got Away 2 & 3
What Matters To Me 1
Sea to Sky
Primary Shapes 2 & 3
Sailing Away on the Deep Blue Sea 1 & 2
