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| FEATURES | BY CLAIRE DAVIES |
 Christmas at the Scrubs by Peter Cameron  Arthur Koestler  Sir Stephen Tumim |
FROM the ceiling of St Mary Abbots Hall in Kensington hangs a giant blue shark. Looking down on a crowded room below, the shark oversees people, catalogues in hand, as they pause in front of walls of paintings, drawings, photography and sculpture. It could be the opening of any smart exhibition in London but something is different, all the works are anonymous. The only clue to their origin is the place they were made: HMP Peterhead, Annersley House, HMP Brixton and so on. Last month the author Will Self opened the 41st Koestler Awards Exhibition, a show of work from UK prisons, young offenders institutions and high security psychiatric units. Mr Self also spotted the shark from high up on his podium; he said it reminded him of Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde version currently in the Saatchi Gallery, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. He suggested the name of this one might be “The Physical Impossibility of Imprisonment in the Mind of Someone Free”. Mr Self went on to say: “I feel a certain affinity to those who are imprisoned; this is partly to do with being through 25 years of active drug addiction, and also the experience of being a writer, which necessitates quiet and contemplation. I reckon I’ve probably spent six years of the last 15 or so in solitary confinement, writing.” This year the awards panel received over 4,000 entries in 58 different categories which include photography, textile art, painting in oil and watercolour and, harder to display, music performance and hairdressing. Of those who enter the competition, about one in four will receive a cash prize ranging from £20 to £60. There are special awards of £100 for outstanding entries. The Koestler Awards were established in 1962 and were the idea of Arthur Koestler, the journalist, novelist and political activist who died in 1983. Always active in the furtherance of humanitarian causes, Arthur Koestler knew well the dehumanising effects of prison life. In 1936 he was arrested by the Fascists during the Spanish Civil War and condemned to death. The British Foreign Office eventually secured his release in exchange for a prisoner of the Valencia government. In 1939 he was arrested in Paris after editing an anti-Soviet, anti-Nazi weekly. He was sent to the Le Vernet Detention Camp and was released again after the intervention of the British. He arrived in England in 1940 only to be put in Pentonville Prison for having entered the country without a formal permit. On his release six weeks later he joined the British Army as a private. The Prison Commission and Lord Rab Butler, the former Home Secretary, enthusiastically endorsed Koestler’s scheme of providing some creative occupation for prisoners, and each year the awards have grown with more entries and an ever-increasing standard of work. Today the scheme has a permanent home in the old pre-release hostel at Wormwood Scrubs. It is here that the judging of the awards takes place. The current Chairman of the Awards Sir Stephen Tumim is in no doubt of the value of the scheme. He writes in this year’s review: “An adult prisoner with inadequate basic skills will have experienced up to 12 years of formal education and most probably time in Young Offender Institutions and Prisons on education courses since leaving school. If those years sitting in a classroom have not achieved their purpose there is little reason to expect that more of the same will make an appreciable difference. A new approach is essential. “Art and Craft courses provide a means by which prisoners can engage in education in a positive manner, whatever their experience. Through achievement in those classes, however small, the prisoner changes from being a non-achiever to an achiever.” Current prison chief inspector Anne Owers agrees with this sentiment. In her speech to the private view, she said: “You look around the room and see prisoners who found this the trigger for doing something else:the reason they didn’t tie their bedsheets into a noose.” n The Koestler Awards Exhibition 2003 at St Mary Abbots Hall, Vicarage Gate, Kensington, is open daily from 10-7pm until October 5. Admission is free. |
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