Medium
Text
Form
Interview quote
Artist / Maker
Former prisoner
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I just had this overwhelming feeling of how many thousands of people have been through here over the year, over the hundreds of years. How many is it, two hundred years? How many people have died in these cells? And it wasn’t a positive feeling. How many people have survived, how many people have lost their wives and their husband, and eked out an existence? I think that’s it, eked out an existence in the back end of the world. It was very overwhelming.
We want to understand what these prisons are like to live and work in, and how has this changed over time. We are examining the ways that these prison buildings carry traces of the past, while operating in the present day.
The project considers how and why these buildings have survived for so long, and asks how we will know when they have reached the end of their operational lives. We consider the significance of the Victorian prison in shaping public and professional ideas of what prison should be like. Crucially, this project explores the implications of the continued operation of Victorian-era prisons for the contemporary prison service, and aims to inform policy development.