The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker

The Southbank Centre is currently holding the annual Koestler Trust exhibition ‘The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker’, showing art by offenders, secure patients and detainees, giving an insight into the personal feelings, regrets and hopes of people in secure settings. The Koestler Trust was set up in 1962 by Arthur Koestler, who was jailed three times for political reasons – the trust was created to encourage prisoners to occupy their mind whilst building something positive out of their situation. Re-offending affects us all, and the trust was set up as a way to show offenders that they have something special and can improve their lives from it.

A stereotypical view of the art world would be one of leisure – artists creating art, wealthy people buying and displaying art, the public viewing art in galleries, the study of art history or fine art – all very pleasant and leisurely appreciations of art. However, since the mid 20^th century art has been cultivated to be used as a therapy for those with mental health issues or behavioural problems, or a way to build something positive out of jail life, and this therapy has proven to be incredibly useful when lowering depression and anxiety in the mentally ill, as well as helping us understand offenders in jails. A lot of speculation as to the effectiveness of art therapy is understandable – issues aren’t spoken about or built on in the traditional sense, yet it is used as a tool to express emotions with more accuracy than speaking can provide for certain people.

The exhibition space and work shown were chosen and curated by Speech Debelle, and the set up of the space itself is very impressive – the area is split into three different sections, the bright yellow and frenetic ‘Strength’ area which leads into the dimmer and more ominous ‘Vulnerability’ section, which then leads into the beige coloured, calmer part to represent the calm after the storm. The Strength section shows works of passion and hardship, some of them are uncomfortable to see and hold a lot of emotion, one video in particular from a mental health patient called ‘Tears on my Pillow’ includes a lot of loud wailing that echos throught the exhibition hall, which is almost disturbing, yet adds to the general feel of the bunker.

Emotions run high in the art work, and they are a startling insight into the lives and feelings of the people who have produced them, and personally I felt a great amount of sympathy for them, despite the fact that a lot of these people were offenders and had been jailed for a reason. Ironically, the theme for many of the art works is ‘forgiveness’, and this theme resulted in probably some of the most moving pictures and paintings of families and acceptance – the especially poignant ones are a set of 4 illustrations with titles like ‘How did we fail as parents?’ and ‘Daddy is working away again’, showing that these prisoners are aware of how they are viewed and that they need to address these issues.

Whilst the strength part of the exhibition showed powerful images and work, the vulnerability area moved into deeper and sadder issues of religion, hopelessness and isolation; religion seemed to be a strong theme touched on by a few of the works, a particularly strong one of a man kneeling in front of the first page of a bible whilst the moonlight creates crucifixes on the floor from the window frame. Isolation was prominent too, with paintings of people looking through windows or bars and over fences, which encourages the fact that art is necessary in these environments as a link to the outside world and a stimulating pass time from counting the minutes.

One thing in particular that I noticed in this exhibition is that whilst some of the art is clearly therapeutic, as their art works were basic but emotive, there was also a lot of talent behind others. My favourite piece was a small sculpture that had been made from bars of soap - it is exquisitely made yet addresses that in some prisons there is a lack of resources to allow offenders to cultivate art therapy. There are pieces of art made from such a wide variation of materials including blue bin bags, bread and PVA glue, chicken bones and bottle tops. However, we have to remember that physical art isn’t the only art available as a therapy, and the written word can be just as powerful. Poetry and written work were amongst the 7,300 entries that were submitted to the competition this year, and the way these have been incorporated in the exhibition is clever and striking – poems are painted on walls, looking almost reminiscent of a jail cell wall, or extracts of poems and stories are hung from ceilings. These written words are equally demonstrative of the emotions of prisoners and its clear that writing can be a release for people who find it hard to verbally open up to therapists.

The problem people may have with this exhibition is the haphazardness of the art works – some seem professionally done, some seem amateur, some are sculptures, videos, sounds, poems, paintings. It’s hard to take in so much at once, especially when there is no flowing theme between them, but if you take your time and appreciate the message and emotions behind each one there is definitely something you can take away from the exhibition. To me, this exhibition is a great show of what art therapy can produce, and the affects it can have on people who need it – by the end of the exhibition I felt like I had a deeper knowledge of emotions that I hadn’t even felt before, and I think this will resonate with me for a long time.

‘The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker’ showing until 1 December 2013 at Soutbank Centre