Awards for prisoners’ artistic works are anonymising all entrants for the first time on the orders of the Prison Service, prompting criticisms from curators and past winners.
Creative writing, artwork and music displayed at the Koestler exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall have previously been labelled with the prisoners’ first names.
But HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) has told Koestler Arts, the charity behind the awards, that it no longer wants the names shown, the prisoners’ newspaper Inside Time has disclosed. In future, only the prison will be named.
The charity, which operates with the agreement of HMPPS, announced the change in its 2024 entry form, stating: “We regret that we can no longer give first names of entrants next to artworks. This is because HMPPS have requested all artists’ work be anonymised from September 2023 onwards.”
Critics of the decision suspect that the government is reacting to complaints from right-leaning media when notorious criminals have displayed their art.
In 2021, the Ministry of Justice withdrew a sketch of a tiger at the exhibition drawn by “Katrina” after it emerged that the artist was Katrina Walsh, jailed for 25 years for murder.
The ruling applies to the annual Koestler exhibition at the Southbank Centre in London and regional displays around the UK. Each is staged with the help of a guest curator, and three former curators told Inside Time they were unhappy with the decision and wanted the Prison Service to reconsider.
The poet, playwright and author Joelle Taylor curated last autumn’s London exhibition, which was the first affected by the new rule.
She said: “I was disappointed to discover during the exhibition that the artworks had been surgically separated from the artists who created them … It is vital that the service rethinks and understand the transformative quality of seeing oneself as something other than the crime committed. The art belongs to the artist.”
The poet and ex-prisoner Lady Unchained, who curated a Koestler exhibition in Manchester in 2021, said: “In prison your name is taken and you are addressed by a number. I think this is a sad moment for those who have picked up a pen or a brush to re-find their voice.”
An HMPPS spokesperson said that while it recognised the importance of art in prisons, “all displayed artwork is anonymised to protect victims”.
The awards were founded in 1962 by the novelist Arthur Koestler. Each year, more than 3,500 people in custody or on probation enter their creative work.
