Dartmoor prisoners use art to reach out
APROJECT between an abstract artist and inmates at Dartmoor Prison is providing a fascinating insight into life behind bars during the Covid crisis.
Once a week, artist Sara Downham-Lotto meets a senior prison officer in a local Tesco car park to exchange bin bags of 20 large envelopes. Inside is the work of convicted male criminals serving their time on the bleak moor. After a Covid-safe period of quarantine, Sara takes them back to the studio and arranges them on to patterned backgrounds, creating a positive message out of their thoughts.
She says: “That’s when the fun starts. In the studio, I play with and create 20 collages out of the contents of each envelope. The finished, collaboratively created results are then photographed, printed into posters and sent back the following week to each inmate to pin up in his cell.”
The fruits of the inspiring project – Prisoners Sharing the Light – can be seen in finished artwork. Sara adds: “The story behind the project is a fascinating one. Prisoners face a particularly challenging and lonely festive season, with no access to family and friends, providing a sharp focus on life inside under Covid.
“At last count, dozens of inmates have Covid and many of the staff are down. The governor I meet weekly in the local Tesco car park to exchange bin bags, from what I can gather, works a 12-14 hour day, with just one day off for Christmas. Our weekly art packs carry on uninterrupted – a life line for all of us.”
The project is run by Arts Lab, established by freelance painter and tutor Sara in 2016. It was formerly based at Dartington but has now gone online full-time.
Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, Prisoners Sharing the Light provides a creative outlet for prisoners, many adapting to contact restrictions and being locked up in cells 23 hours a day. The idea is to use art to reduce issues of isolation and anxiety amongst male prisoners.
The question Sara asked 20 prisoners recently was: ‘What keeps me going?’
The results are beautifully decorated words like ‘patience’, ‘hope’, ‘family’ and ‘chocolate’.
Sara says: “It provides a valuable insight into ‘forgotten’, marginalised groups, highlighting what it is to be human and what connects us all.
“The incarcerated have the opportunity to have a voice and the basic human right to express and to be heard.”
All artwork is shared on Arts Lab’s daily social media posts. Some goes to public exhibitions, some is developed into limited edition prints available to purchase on Arts Lab’s online shop. Three quarters of all profits go back into the project. To date, over 800 pieces of original artwork have been created and celebrated. This process will continue for 24 weeks, and it has reached week six.
Sara says: “It serves the double purpose of improving the lives of prisoners and raising the profile of visual arts as a force for good.
One ex-prisoner commented on a completed artwork by saying: “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.”
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.”