PRISON ART
AND THE KOESTLER TRUST
We are the UK's best-known prison arts charity. We have been awarding, exhibiting and selling artworks by offenders, detainees and secure patients for over 49 years.
Our awards receive over 7,000 entries a year - inspiring offenders to take part in the arts, work for achievement and transform their lives. Our national exhibition attracts 14,000 visitors - showing the public the talent and potential of offenders and people in secure settings.
We have no endowment or capital - our work depends entirely on donations. More
OUR AIMS AS A CHARITY
- To help offenders, secure patients and detainees lead more positive lives by motivating them to participate and achieve in the arts.
- To increase public awareness and understanding of arts by offenders, secure patients & detainees.
- To be a dynamic, responsive organisation which achieves excellent quality and value for money.
SARAH LUCAS TO CURATE KOESTLER'S 50th ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION AT SOUTHBANK CENTRE
We're really pleased to announce that Sarah Lucas will be curating this year's exhibition and is already planning to transform the Southbank Centre's Spirit Level exhibition space in the Royal Festival Hall using her trademark breeze block structures. She said:
“I've always felt art to be something that can be made in any circumstances, with anything. For me, earlier on, it was about making a path to somewhere else from the set of circumstances I found myself in.
Life is hard sometimes, but then again, it can be flexible. In prison the imagination is the only available freedom. I thought I'd have a look at what people inside are doing with it.”
We're incredibly excited to have an artist of Sarah's calibre involved for our red letter year. It's already clear that she will put her stamp on the exhibition, but also that she has an instinctive grasp for how vital creativity is to people in prisons and other secure settings.
MENTORING
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that offenders who have taken part successfully in the arts while in prison fully intend to carry on when they are released, but in practice fail to do so. Like many other positive habits and plans made in custody, arts activity often gets lost in the difficult transition back into life on the outside.
To address this issue we have trained a group of professional artists as mentors, then matched them to prisoners who have won Koestler awards and are due for release.
JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
We are now producing a regular newsletter (pdf), to keep everyone in touch with our latest news, future plans and any forthcoming events. If you'd like to receive news on forthcoming exhibitions, Art Sales and projects please sign up for our mailing list.
QUICK LINKS
- NEW Listen to the rap on the Safety Net of Sky exhibition
- Arts Team volunteers needed
- SAFETY NET OF SKY - exhibition for the North West 2012
- NEW Publications page
- 2011 Poetry Selection
- UK 2011 Exhibition
- Scotland 2011 Exhibition
- Exhibition for the North West 2011
- Become a Mentor
- Name an Award
- Who is Arthur Koestler?
- Join our mailing list
Late Entries
We are accepting late entries for the 2012 Koestler Awards - look forward to recieiving the work as soon as possible!
SAFETY NET OF SKY
The Koestler Exhibition
for the North West 2012
30 March – 27 May
World Museum, Liverpool
SAFETY NET OF SKY is an exhibition of artwork and writing from prisons, secure hospitals, secure children's homes and by people on probation in the North West of England.
The exhibition has been curated by young people from Liverpool Youth Offending Service.
Find out more about the exhibition
