Prisoner Arts in Context: Global Perspectives (Captive Arts Symposium)

Prisoner Arts in Context is an international, multi-stakeholder symposium bringing together academics, practitioners, artists, activists, government and prison service officials to explore the creative lives of people serving time in prisons across the world.

Led by the Captive Arts research team at Warwick, with contributions from We Roar & supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account fund and Arts Council UK, this one-day event is centred around interactive panel discussions, performance and exhibited works, that engage with Prisoner Arts’ distinctive features. 

Explored across visual mediums, theatre, music, poetry, and other creative outputs and from a range of lived experience and global academic, practitioner, artist, activist, government and prison service perspectives.

The symposium draws attention to the challenges faced by individuals participating in and delivering arts in criminal justice institutions, the internationalisation of prisoner arts, issues of access, visibility, and anonymity encountered by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated artists.

As well as the prospects for the arts in criminal justice institutions, it also covers questions of advocacy and impact exchange in this area of work.