The author of the logo is Andrzej Budek (Kotbury.pl). The artist provided it to us free of charge.
’Art Schools and prisons’ is the second edition of the project, which is about engaging artistic academia with socially and culturally excluded people who are isolated in prison. With this aim, we have created an interesting programme of art workshops and cultural education classes that we will organise in various prisons in Poland. We have invited Justyna Żarczyńska (National Museum in Poznań) and Honza Zamoyski (School of Form) to conduct workshops in the Detention Centre in Poznań. Workshops in the Detention Centres in Warsaw – Grochów, Służewiec and Białołęka were led by dr Małgorzata Gurowska, Joanna Ruszczyk and dr Sebastian Krok from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and in the Detention Centre and External Ward in Wrocław by dr Małgorzata Jabłońska and dr Piotr Szewczyk from the Department of Graphics at SWPS University.
The programme included cultural and artistic education, including creative activities conducted according to the artists’ original concepts. We conducted them in 6 prisons for more than 120 inmates, male and female. In addition, organised so-called “KO outings”, cultural and educational activities for groups of men and women serving sentences in semi-open wards. They took part in artistic and cultural activities outside prison.
We believe that the cooperation between the academy and the prisons established thanks to the project will continue after its completion and will contribute to lasting changes in the methods of creative social readaptation of excluded people, who often already at the start have fewer opportunities than most of us people from freedom.
Project implementation: June – December 2024.
Detention Centre in Poznań, workshops by Justyna Żarczyńska
Activities conducted by Justyna Żarczyńska from the National Museum in Poznań were devoted to self-portrait in art, presentation and self-presentation. Participants listened to a lecture, watched a multimedia presentation and, as part of the workshop, made artworks entitled “Self-portrait. Looking ‘in’ and ‘at’ yourself”.
Detention Centre in Poznań, Honza Zamoyski’s workshops
Honza Zamoyski, artist, book designer and publisher, art curator and lecturer at the School of Form in Warsaw, led a collage workshop, supported by a lecture on this “most democratic art form” – it does not require special skills from the creators.
Detention Centre and Closed Ward in Wrocław, workshops by Małgorzata Jabłońska and Piotr Szewczyk
The workshops entitled “State of Concentration” were led by artists Dr Małgorzata Jabłońska and Dr Piotr Szewczyk and academics Dr hab. Mariusz Wszołek, Prof. SWPS oraz MA Paulina Woźniak-Dębińska from the Department of Graphics at Wrocław’s SWPS University, , and
The workshop consisted of two meetings. They used idea generation tools, the creation of a mind map for a keyword: states of focus (from general associations to more precise ones), followed by the categorisation of associations and free artistic activities relating to the theme of the workshop, using water mats and Chinese calligraphy brushes.
The theme is open-ended enough to give those attending the workshop many interpretive possibilities.
Detention centres in Warsaw – Białołęka, Warsaw – Grochów and Warsaw – Służewiec, Sebastian Krok’s workshops
Sebastian Krok conducted painting workshops in three Warsaw prisons: in Grochów for women, in Służewiec and Białołęka for men. He began the classes by reading a fragment of Wiesław Myśliwski prose (“Pałac”):
„Beauty, my dear friends, must hurt to be true. It must be imperfect, flawed, suffering in order to be beautiful. It must hide, so to speak, some self-embarrassment, self-doubt, maybe even helplessness, maybe fear. You will know it especially by the fact that it, as it were, is at your mercy, at your forbearance, even at your forgiveness, and therefore at your covenant with it”.
Myśliwski’s reading of the text was to inspire the participants to create paintings. And the theme of the works was, of course, “Beauty”. During the activities, the artist talked about painting techniques, interesting facts from the history of art, colourful anecdotes and stories related to the world of art.
While listening to the colourful stories, the participants painted pictures.
Detention centres in Warsaw – Białołęka, Warsaw – Grochów and Warsaw – Służewiec, workshops by Małgorzata Gurowska and Joanna Ruszczyk
Małgorzata Gurowska and Joanna Ruszczyk conducted “Tree of Life” workshops in Warsaw prisons, for women and men. They talked to participants about nature, about trees as allies of humans in times of climate catastrophe, which absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen, cool the air; “about specific trees that we like, observe, perhaps remember from childhood, but also about symbolic, imagined, dreamt-of trees”. During the workshop, participants “discovered” these trees within themselves, drew them and talked about them. And at the end of the activities, they planted shrubs in each prison, which will be looked after by the people imprisoned.
The project coordinator was Małgorzata Brus.
Co-financed by funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for the Promotion of Culture – a state purpose fund.
