Shared Worlds
Begun with prisoners
The Shared World series is an outcome of Sara’s collaboration with ten vulnerable male prisoners incarcerated at Dartmoor Prison. The finished pieces were installed for display both inside and outside the prison for public viewing.
In the Arts Lab studio, Sara assembled each of the 50cm x 50cm pieces from artwork created with the Great Prison Art Exchange group. The artwork she cut up into concentric circles and squares was painted during fortnightly workshops inside the prison, where she facilitated collaborative abstract experiments with a range of art materials on large rolls of paper. Mediums included concoctions invented by the prisoners in their cells, such as crayon shavings with PVA glue and floor cleaner.
Shared Worlds is one of a number of series of artworks created with/for the Arts Lab Great Prison Art Exchange, funded by the UK National Lottery Community Fund. The project proved successful in its objective to reduce incidences of self harm and suicide. The images below illustrate: the starting point – a painting workshop in the Arts Lab studio for prison governors and officers of HMPs Dartmoor and Exeter; artwork created with the prisoners; Sara’s working process in the studio.
‘Door locked. A horseshoe of chairs next to an expanse of white paper on the floor; table 1 with tea urn, tea bags, custard creams and a row of plastic blue mugs; table 2 laden with paint pots, brushes, pastels and a pile of paper. Over 3 hours of shared creative making, we connect, talk and laugh. There’s a heightened eagerness in the room to be involved in something which gives us a shared sense of purpose, which helps to pass the time when we are alone, which helps to make our environment (physical and emotional) more beautiful and which, above all, gives us hope of a life better than this …’
