Insider Art

Art from the Koestler Awards Scheme

For its summer exhibition, the ICA has organised a show of art by prisoners and others in confinement in Britain, including inmates at young offender institutions, high-security psychiatric hospitals, secure units and immigration removal centres, as well as people supervised by probation and youth offending teams. The works have been made within the last year, including painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics, textiles and other media. They have been brought together for the Koestler Awards Scheme, an annual competition promoting creativity across the criminal justice system, which received over 3100 entries in the art and design categories this year. The works exhibited at the ICA have been specially selected from these submissions by Zelda Cheatle (photography consultant and Koestler trustee), Grayson Perry (artist), Dr Mike Phillips (author and curator, Tate) and Mark Sladen (director of exhibitions, ICA).

The Koestler Trust was founded by the writer Arthur Koestler in 1962 to support the creation of art in prisons, and has subsequently developed a unique role that is recognised across the criminal justice system. This is the first year that works from the awards scheme will be shown in a major public institution. This is also the first time that some of the works will be exhibited under the artists’ own names. Insider Art offers an important insight into both the vibrant artistic culture within the criminal justice system and the work of the Koestler Trust in fostering it.