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Art Therapy in Prisons
Prof Peter Sinapius, International Institute for Subjective Experience and Research
(ISER)/ MSH Medical School Hamburg (University of Applied Sciences)
‘The jail is looking at me like from a mirror; my mouth is closed like the door that keeps me
from hate in the morning, from my own and from the hate of those who have imprisoned
me. I wish I could lose my mind so as not to understand the senselessness of my punishment.’
These are the words of an inmate from a prison in Germany. They were recently
published in a book of stories and poems by prisoners 3.
In prison there is no freedom. The inmates are controlled by clear rules. Contact with
friends and relatives is interrupted and the space for privacy and retreat is reduced to a
minimum. Independence is lost and prisoners have no autonomy. They are excluded
from the social community.
As a result, fundamental conditions of life are affected. The withdrawal of liberty is an
existential incident. This pressure leads to a high suicide rate, especially in the first weeks of
imprisonment. Between 2000 and 2004, 442 prisoners in Germany committed suicide, 279
of whom did so within the first 6 months of imprisonment and seven within 24 hours of arrest.
German penal law states that:
•Life in prison should be as similar to the general conditions of life as possible.
•Harmful effects of imprisonment should be prevented.
•Imprisonment should be executed in a way that helps to reintegrate the prisoners
into life outside prison.
The reality is far removed from these principles. Imprisonment is neither similar to the
living conditions outside the prisons nor does it teach the prisoners to lead a life of
independence. Life inside and outside prison is clearly distinguished. Prison is a foreign
place for those who are outside.
Prisons are always the others 4was the title of an art exhibition that took place in Berlin
four years ago. One part of the exhibition consisted of collaborations between artists
and prisoners. One work showed a video documentation of a project in the USA entitled
‘Question Marks’ from the year 1996.
3William V.: Ich suche meine Augen. In: In jeder Nacht lacht der Teufel leise – Literatur aus dem
Strafvollzug 2011. Assoverlag.
4‘Knast sind immer die Anderen’
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‘Question Marks’ was developed as an exchange project between two groups of
prisoners who had never met before: ten long-term inmates from the U.S. Federal
Penitentiary, one of the largest high-security prisons in the United States, and thirty young
people from the Juvenile Court / Fulton County Child Treatment Center in Atlanta. Over
three months a video exchange between these two groups was organised. The
background to the videos was a series of art-workshops that dealt with questions of
perception, space and relationships. The inmates created their images in visual art and
performances, which became a starting point for discussions about themes of intimacy,
family, crime and punishment. Each group documented its own work process, which it
then made available to the other as material for the exchange between the long-term
inmates and the group of young inmates.
In a further development, questions were formulated that addressed society as a whole;
these were printed on car number plates, which were then driven in public. On the plates
people could read: Are you scared of the lifestyle that you must now live as a young
man? Who should I fear? Are you who you say you are? What do you want to know
about me? Can you get away?
The project shows possible effects of art in prison. It opened boundaries to facilitate
development and to stimulate communication. This seems paradoxical, because the
purpose of prison is the opposite: it is isolation, restriction of personal scope, exclusion
from the community, limitation of freedom and communication. The reason that art
makes something possible that is not part of real life in prison is that it opens imaginary
spaces and follows its own rules. In these spaces of freedom the possibilities become
almost limitless. Dramas can take place about murder and killing without any blood
actually flowing. The prisoners can travel to foreign countries, without the prison walls
being torn down. They can create visions and hopes for the future.
The desire to open up boundaries beyond everyday life in prison leads to an above-
average drug use inside. The use of drugs is an attempt to escape reality, a way of
seeking a world without borders and boundaries.
Through the influence of drugs as well that of art, inmates have access to an alternative
world experience, a reality the prison system does not have access to. But there is a
crucial difference between these two options of going into an alternative world. Unlike
artistic imagination, the use of drugs reduces a person’s autonomy or even destroys it.
It is replaced by addiction and disease. Artistic work however opens spaces of freedom
that allow individual development and change processes even within the context of
imprisonment.
I’ll show you some examples of artistic work in prison that I supervised:
Three students worked in a women’s prison for 8 weeks with 6 inmates. The penitentiary
had 22imprisonment places. 90% of women who are imprisoned have committed crimes
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related to drug abuse and drug trafficking. In the beginning they were very shy and
unsure, lacking confidence. That changed significantly during the work. The group
worked with various artistic media: masks were built, pictures were painted, plays were
performed, the participants danced and made music. The women themselves were
amazed at their own capacity. One woman said, while cutting eyeholes into her mask:
‘Until now I’ve known how to stab someone violently with a knife, but to handle a knife
in such a fine and sensitive way is new for me’.
The women increasingly developed confidence and discovered the art work as a way
to communicate and to act responsibly beyond hierarchy and subordination. The space
in which the artwork took place was clearly distinct from the context of the prison’s
everyday life. It was not about adaptation and subordination. The inmates and the
students related to and cooperated with each other.
The dancing showed what effect art can have in prison. It opens up a possibility which
is usually denied: free movement. Dance influences the perception of space, time, one’s
body, others, and relationships that become visible through the movement. While moving
you are moved. In this way art creates space for processes of change.
Another art project in the penitentiary in Bremen is a workshop called Open Walls, in
which the prisoners produce sculptures. The sculpture studio was founded in 1978 on
the occasion of a competition. At that time there were many changes in a variety of social
fields, including prisons. This brought art rehabilitation projects into institutions. The
purpose was to address the core of the human being and to give space for individual
expression.
The prisoners work in the art studio as part of their obligation to work and are paid for it.
The sculptures, which emerge from the hands of the inmates, are placed in public spaces
such as squares, schools or playgrounds.
One prisoner, who has been in jail since 2010 said, ‘I took drugs; I am here because of
drug-related crime. I had nothing to do with art before, but in the sculpture workshop of
the prison, I realised how much fun it is. Here I am finally doing something useful.’
The way to relate to any artistic material is a kind of creative dialogue, which differs
considerably from the interactions that are determined by the rules of the prison. When
you work on a thick piece of wood to make a sculpture you go into a dialogue with the
material. While you impress the material, the material will make an impression on you:
It is hard or soft, its fibres stand up against the blows or receive and absorb them, its
internal structure and texture challenges you to work in a certain direction. You cannot
do whatever you want; you are forced to respond to the piece. If a prisoner works in this
way, he has new experiences: his actions are not determined by extrinsic rules as they
result from an active dialogue and the intrinsic properties of the material.
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Another prisoner who has been involved in the sculpture workshop reports of his
experiences:
‘While working on my sculptures I can solve problems and reduce complexes, which
even by psychiatrists and psychologists are deemed unsolvable. My confidence has
increased by working in the group and I don’t want to miss this atmosphere. In a sense
you can say this is like therapy…it's the best thing I've seen in 16 years of being in prison.
The production of sculptures is like childbirth, the sculpture is born, sometimes it’s even
painful… To carve a stone is like merging with the material that is carved, you develop
a sense of the stone from which the sculpture is created, you get to know the mass of a
stone to its very inner core…
It is very important that everybody can express himself, so that we can present our true
thoughts to the outside world, and not what society says about us…’ 5
5Paul Bichler in: In jeder Nacht lacht der Teufel leise – Literatur aus dem Strafvollzug 2011.
Assoverlag.
