“The Art of Survival” brings together more than 30 local, national, and international artists and collectives who have produced artwork inside institutions for women or while on parole. Curated by the Prison for Women Memorial Collective (P4WMC) and Sheena Hoszko, this exhibition is part of P4WMC’s long-term project to remember and honour people who lived and died inside prisons designated for women across Canada.
The show includes painting, drawing, mixed media, beadwork, textile, audio, sculpture, photography, video, and a small retrospective on Tightwire, the prisoner newsletter produced inside Prison for Women (P4W) from 1970 to 1993. The exhibition’s title draws from a 1992 essay by artist, community organizer, and former P4W prisoner Gayle K. Horii. Alongside images of her figurative sculpture, Horii affirms the power of artmaking inside prison;
“Women in prison waste nothing. Every bead, every shred of fabric and leather, every piece of paper and every pen is used or passed on... When women leave prison, they take with them the love and respect for their sisters in struggle. They leave behind their tools for survival. The woman left will be reminded that one day it will be her turn to leave and when it comes, she will also pass these valuable tools on.”
In the 30 years since Horii’s declaration, it has become increasingly difficult for prisoners to create Art due to increasing restrictions by prison administration. Ongoing barriers include difficulty accessing art materials and cuts to programming — these limitations reflect prisoners’ worsening physical and psychological living conditions from coast-to-coast.
The artworks in “The Art of Survival” explore themes of love, community, sisterhood, healing, survival, resistance, and resilience. The invited artists shift the frame, describe things in a different tone of voice, and depict life in and beyond prison walls. In doing so, they counter the negative stereotypes of people caught in the prison system. P4WMC and its allies invite viewers to imagine a world that does not rely on the violence of prisons for community safety and accountability.
We dedicate this exhibition to all who have lived, who have loved, who have survived, and who have died in prisons across so-called Canada.
Artist: Anonymous #1
Title: Woman Behind Bars
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Date/Institution: Prison for Women, Kingston
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Anonymous #1
Title: Protection
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Date/Institution: June 1999, Prison for Women, Kingston
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Anonymous #2
Title: Untitled
Medium: Leather, sinew, feathers, beads
Date/Institution: 1993
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Title: Untitled
Medium: Cotton thread [lace], metal
Artist: Anonymous #3
Date/Institution: Unknown
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Title: Untitled
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Artist: Anonymous #4
Date/Institution: Unknown
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Title: Untitled
Medium: Wood, paint
Artist: Anonymous #5
Date/Institution: Prison for Women
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Robyn Boersma Balfour
Title: Untitled
Medium: Beads, beading thread
Date/Institution: 2021, Fraser Valley Institution
Description: The colours chosen are the medicine wheel colours, traditional and healing, to give us balance on our journeys. Many women, as me, lose our children, our self-worth, our everything when stuck in addiction and jails. Beading, ceremony, and support help us find our way back to a better life. I got into beading while incarcerated to create works of art and have gifts to send to family and friends. Many women bead as a means of making money while locked up. The beadwork that I have seen over the years is incredible. It takes time, passion, and dedication to create.
Artist: Danielle Betteridge
Title: Untitled
Medium: Digital photograph
Date/Institution: Unknown
Description: While homeless, I came upon this little flower growing out of the concrete in Downtown Winnipeg. It gave me the feeling that one day everything would be okay. So, I got down on my knees and took its picture.
Artist: Audrey Bignose
Title: Women of the World
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Date/Institution: 2018, Edmonton Institution for Women
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Adele Breese
Title: Untitled
Medium: Ceramic, leather
Date/ Institution: 2003, Prison for Women Kingston, Edmonton Institution for Women, Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Chelsey Cook
Title: Mask
Medium: Textiles, elastic
Date/Institution: 2020, Fraser Valley Institution
Artist: Chelsey Cook
Title: Moccasins
Medium: Suede, beads, fur
Date/Institution: 2018, Grand Valley Institution for Women
Artist: Georgia Davis
Title: Untitled
Medium: Blanket, beads, thread
Date/Institution: May 17, 1996, Prison for Women, Kingston
Description/Artist Statement:
THE BACKGROUND REPRESENTS THE NEGATIVE WE LIVE IN.
THE VERTICAL LINES REPRESENTS THE BARS THAT SURROUND US.
THE HORIZONTAL LINES REPRESENTS AND FORM THE CAGES WE LIVE IN.
THE SQUARES REPRESENTS THE ISOLATION WE LIVE IN.
THE WOMEN SIGNS ARE IN CAGES, ISOLATED, AND THEIR DIFFERENT PLACEMENTS REPRESENTS THE VARIOUS EMOTIONS, WE AS WOMEN GO THROUGH WHEN, DOING OUR SENTENCES.
THE WOMEN SIGNS ARE ALL COLOURS, ALL BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL.
THE SUN REPRESENTS THE WARMTH, HOPE, INSPIRATION, AND STRENGTH THAT YOU GIVE US.
THE DOVE REPRESENTS THE PEACE AND THE FREEDOM THAT WE DREAM OF.
THE SUN AND DOVE ARE TOGETHER BECAUSE THEY’RE INTERTWINED IN OUR HOPES, AND DREAMS.
THANKS FOR ALL YOUR COURAGEOUS, PERPETUAL, EFFORTS KIM.
WE SHALL OVERCOME, SOMEDAY.
IN FAITH.
GEORGIA DAVIS.
From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Gayle K. Horii
Title: The Agony & The Ecstasy
Medium: Glazed ceramic
Date/Institution: 1992
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Gayle K. Horii
Title: Untitled
Medium: Glazed ceramic
Date/Institution: 1992
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Gayle K. Horii
Title: Untitled
Medium: Glazed ceramic
Date/Institution: 1992
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Artist: Joint Effort
Title: Joint Effort Banner
Medium: Textiles, thread, buttons, beads, paint
Artist: Joint Effort
Date/Institution: 2007, Fraser Valley Institution
Description: Joint Effort is a collective of women, trans and queer folk who go into women’s prisons and jails and do workshops of mutual interest with people from the community inside with people from the community outside. One of those workshops came out of talks about remembering women we had known who had died inside. With Prisoners Justice Day and the Women’s Memorial March, a lot of our creative expression and connections were around remembering and grief and transforming that toward liberatory action with each other and the wider world. This workshop took place 15 years ago while the prison was getting fuller and fuller with omnibus bills forcing minimum sentences and making it harder to get out into the community. We had a couple of nights where we worked with Elders from Circle of Eagles, with some of the folks inside the women’s prison and members of the women’s community on the outside. We dedicated pieces of the banner to some of the women who had died inside and talked with each other about the amazing people we knew them as and how important it is for people inside prison and the community outside to know they are remembered. Ultimately, every death inside is an unnatural one as the conditions of prison, the genocidal effects of disconnecting people from family, community, their freedom and self-determination. The isolation and institutionalization all impact well-being and living. Remembering those who have died, ourselves, those times we have connected inside and have broken isolation is transformative. It reminds us why we continue to abolish prisons one connection at a time.
Artist: Heather Evans
Title: Tree of Life
Medium: Ink on paper
Date/Institution: 2014
Description:
The creative mind wanders when you’re in prison.
Art was my way of fine-tuning an analytical mind.
It opened a door to myself that I never knew existed, it was my way out.
Artist: Robyn Kina
Title: Untitled
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Date/Institution: 2001
Description: From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate
Often found in prisons, murals were the only bright, colourful spots in an otherwise dull and oppressive institutional space. This collaborative, imaginative, mythical mural was the backdrop to countless photographs taken inside P4W. This illustration of the mural, based on personal photos, was reproduced inside the PumpHouse Gallery.
Artist: Deeandra Papaquash
Title: Untitled
Medium: Acrylic on board
Date/Institution: 2016, Grand Valley Institution for Women, Edmonton Institution for Women
Description: This work was gifted to Kim Pate when she was appointed as Senator
From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate.
Artist: Cathee Porter
Title: HAHA
Medium: Institutionally issued blue T-shirt
Date/Institution: 2020, Fraser Valley Institution
Description: These altered shirts can be found in most federal prisons designated for women. Since prisoners don’t have money, we must find creative ways to use the limited amount of clothes issued during our sentence. Prisoners who do not have family or friends to send them personal items in boxes at the beginning of their sentence only have institutionally issued clothing; grey track pants or shorts, grey crew-neck sweatshirt, and a bright blue t-shirt. Women cannot change out their clothing for different sizes unless they lose or gain at least 50 lbs. Women clearly want to switch things up and wear something different. Since lending, sharing, or giving gifts to other prisoners – such as clothing – is illegal, the most feasible option is to simply alter the prison-issued clothes provided to you. These shirts are cut into different designs and tie-dyed. The t-shirt is called “HAHA” because the prison was charging people with destruction of government property if people altered their issued clothing…HAHA.
Artist: Cathee Porter
Title: Hidden Ethereal Love
Medium: Photographs, rocks, grass, sticks, glitter, sequins, feathers, jewelry
Date/Institution: 2021, Fraser Valley Institution
Description: This piece is made of shredded pictures of people and places I have lost. These pictures, in their whole form, made me extremely sad, as loss and death sometimes stunted me into a state of stasis, I loathe that. So, I made them into a love nest, and it seems to quell the loss and grief I have around them. The background beads are painted matte black to represent prayers to the universe in the dark. The middle is bright pink, representing clarity, being held and surrounded by my lost people and their love.
Artist: The Circle Project
Title: What Fools These Mortals Be
Medium: Video installation
Artist: The Circle Project
Date/Institution: 2019
Description: What Fools These Mortals Be was produced by The Circle Project, an association of artists, activists and formerly incarcerated women committed to producing provocative art together. We make art to create community with women who have just been released, as a mode of sharing and healing, as a way of sparking imagination. We make art that comes out of our abolition feminism and aims to change the public conversation around incarceration.
Our project evolved out of talking circles and art workshops with a group of formerly incarcerated women in Vancouver. The idea for appropriating Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream came from one of the women who had auditioned for the play in high school. Directed by Adad Hannah with a professional wardrobe, hair, lighting, and camera crew, the entire 50+ tableau vivant was shot over a weekend. Adad and his assistant edited the piece and added a beautiful musical score by Brigitte.
Our head artist, Adad Hannah, works in tableau vivant to talk back to conventions of art history and populate an older form with new and radical content. The result is a three-screen or single-channel video projection that reimagines Shakespeare as a beautiful, embodied act of imagination.
What Fools was a labour of love: all our collaborating artists took time out of their complex and busy lives to show up, attend workshops, and open themselves to the laughter and tears of collective creation. I hope audiences can sense the joy that went into this production.
Tightwire was a quarterly publication written and produced by prisoners at Kingston’s Prison for Women from 1978 to 1993. This publication offered a platform for artistic expression, manifesting in short stories, essays, poems, artwork, quotes, puzzles, jokes, and political and legal commentary. Through creative expression, Tightwire enabled prisoners to free themselves from the physical barriers of imprisonment.
Like other penal publications, freedom of press was not extended to Tightwire. Constructive criticism was supposed to be integral to the penal press, but the content was subject to varying and unpredictable degrees of administrative censorship. Tightwire editors found a loophole by submitting censored content to alternative penal publications with more lenient censors and re-publishing afterwards.
Tightwire and other penal presses were circulated widely throughout penal institutions and further afield via subscriptions. Tightwire is now seen as an invaluable resource to scholars, offering firsthand insights into the lived penal experience, how prisoners viewed the penal justice system, and its policies and practices.
To continue to spread the word and support the voices of those who contributed to Tightwire, a selection of printed covers is available for visitors to take home. For additional information about Tightwire and other Canadian penal press publications, please visit penalpress.com.
Artist: Jackie Traverse
Title: Untitled
Medium: Oil on canvas
Artist: Jackie Traverse
Date/Institution: Unknown
Description: https://www.jackietraverse.com/
From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate.
Artist: Jackie Traverse
Title: 7 Grandfather Teachings
Medium: Photographs of oil paintings.
Description: The Seven Sacred Teachings have long been the tenets that the Original People of Turtle Island have lived by. Based on the Natural Laws, our ancestors created the Seven Teachings through observation and reverence for our 4 footed and winged relatives and how they functioned and survived adhering to the natural order of the world Creator gifted to all living things.
Everything we need to survive and prosper was shown to us through the lives of all living things.
How to utilize the medicines, food, values, ceremony, and all the living elements (fire, water, wind, sun moon, trees, plants, the grandfathers, and changing seasons) were all demonstrated to us by all our relatives.
The Turtle taught us Truth about the Natural Laws and carries the truth on his back.
The Eagle taught us Love, which is the most undeniable force and gift from Creator.
The Wolf taught us Humility through his dedication to his family and pack (community).
The Bear taught us Courage to face our greatest foe (ourselves).
Sabe taught us Honesty there is no ‘ifs or buts’. There can only be honesty, to truly survive.
The Beaver taught us Wisdom is gained through experience as he prepares for the changing seasons.
The Buffalo taught us Respect by sacrificing his body and spirit for our survival.
https://www.jackietraverse.com/
From the private collection of Senator Kim Pate.
Artist: Georgia Ward
Title: Handmade Beadwork 1
Medium: Beads, crystal, pearls, sinew, beading thread, leather
Date/Institution: 2020s
Description: I don’t make art, I create my pieces with people in mind, so it fits their personalities. That’s how my beading started. My creative ideas come from a native modern twist. I learned to make them by seeing how it’s done and making them hands-on first experience… self-taught until I discovered the tutorials on Facebook groups. I would like people to know that I usually make one-of-a-kind pieces, not duplicates, and it becomes more personal. The colours in most of my work are those that people requested because of their culture. When I was in prison, I didn’t do as much beading as most of the girls. I did enough that I had an idea, but when I did, I loved the laughter and sisterhood that they had, I could see it was a stress release and a few minutes to get away in their own world and enjoy the togetherness.
Artist: Georgia Ward
Title: Handmade Beadwork 2
Medium: Beads, crystal, pearls, sinew, beading thread, leather
Date/Institution: 2020s
Description: I don’t make art, I create my pieces with people in mind, so it fits their personalities. That’s how my beading started. My creative ideas come from a native modern twist. I learned to make them by seeing how it’s done and making them hands-on first experience… self-taught until I discovered the tutorials on Facebook groups. I would like people to know that I usually make one-of-a-kind pieces, not duplicates, and it becomes more personal. The colours in most of my work are those that people requested because of their culture. When I was in prison, I didn’t do as much beading as most of the girls. I did enough that I had an idea, but when I did, I loved the laughter and sisterhood that they had, I could see it was a stress release and a few minutes to get away in their own world and enjoy the togetherness.
Artist: Walls to Bridges Collective
Title: Erasure Poetry
Medium: Ink, graphite, crayon on paper
Date/Institution: 2017, Grand Valley Institution for Women
Description: This work was made by The Erasing Frankenstein Collective, a diverse group made up of students from the University of New Brunswick (UNB) and incarcerated and non-incarcerated members from Walls2 Bridges (W2B). W2B is an innovative educational program that brings together incarcerated (“Inside”) and non-incarcerated (“Outside”) students to study post-secondary courses in jails and prisons across Canada.
Facilitated by Drs. Elizabeth Effinger and Sue Sinclair, “Erasing Frankenstein” was a public humanities activity that showcased the creative exchange that took place between federally incarcerated women and members of the prison-education think tank W2B, and graduate and undergraduate students from the University of New Brunswick. Working collaboratively by long-distance mail, they made the first-ever poetic adaptation of Frankenstein, turning it into a long erasure poem, made by “erasing” each page of the novel, that is by blotting out unwanted words to create a poem with the remaining ones. In doing so, they brought marginal figures, voices, and affects murmuring in the background to the foreground. W2B and UNB participants took turns responding to each other’s artwork. Our goal was to create a long-distance conversation through art.
A driving question for the project was: How is the monster remade when incarcerated voices are heard?
The result is that the male narrative voices of the novel were replaced by a patchwork body of voices from the novel’s forgotten female characters, many of whom suffer themselves either directly or indirectly from imprisonment and injustice. This composite of minor voices was brought to life by the hands of a collective authorship that put incarcerated women equally at the helm. This artwork aims to question public perspectives on incarceration and to acknowledge, if not ease, the challenges presented by reintegration of the formerly imprisoned into society. Our goals for this project were to showcase a more inclusive, collaborative, and creative way of engaging with Frankenstein, and to start a critical dialogue within literary culture and higher education over the politics of inclusion, exclusion, and erasure within our various communities. We believe artwork produced by incarcerated and recently incarcerated individuals can help build and strengthen relations among incarcerated women, students, scholars, writers, policymakers, community justice organizations, and members of the public.
For more on the project, please visit erasingfrankenstein.org
Artist: Natasha Warren
Title: Crazy Face
Medium: Acrylic on canvas (Materials provided by the Elizabeth Fry Society)
Date/Institution: 2013, Fraser Valley Institution
Description: The painting is based on the feeling of that exact moment, right after you have been sentenced by the judge. Followed immediately by getting fingerprinted, DNA swabbed, and thrown in a cell in the courthouse for processing to a Women’s Federal Penitentiary. That is what this painting captures. That first hour of your long sentence.
After the piece was finished, I wrote a song about what I had painted.
Art is a way to not just express your emotions, but also a great cathartic experience while in prison.
Artist: Walls to Bridges Class – Anonymous #6
Title: Untitled
Medium: Laminated acrylic on paper
Date/Institution: 2022, Windsor South West Detention Centre Women’s Unit
Description: Painting completed during Walls to Bridges class.
This work was made as part of Walls2 Bridges (W2B), an innovative educational program that brings together incarcerated (“Inside”) and non-incarcerated (“Outside”) students to study post-secondary courses in jails and prisons across Canada. Betty Barrett facilitated a course entitled Tough Chicks: Representations of Women’s Strength and Anger in Popular Culture and Society in South West Detention Centre in Windsor, Ontario.
This statement of values was collectively made between inside and outside students.
This Is How Tough Chicks Rolls
Bringing Down Walls and Building Bridges Together!
Together, we:
Trust, listen and appreciate without judgment.
Empower with kindness, understanding and empathy.
Together, we are:
Respectful, confidential, and honest
Friendly, patient, and supportive
Compassionate and empathetic
Together, we share:
Humility, enjoyment, and fun
We are:
Equals with hearts
Bringing down walls and building bridges together!
The Shape Agency, Betty Jo Barrett, Aleisha Block, Walls to Bridges, Jennifer Campbell, Melissa Cruise, Turner Douglas, Elizabeth Effinger, Joint Effort, Heather Evans, Rachel Fayter, Kevin Gibbs, Lisa Guenther, Ann Hansen, Sheena Hoszko, Anne-Marie Houston, Bobbie Kidd, Lora McElhinney, Kirsten McIlveen, Simone McLeod, Melissa Munn, Andrew Osborne, Kim Pate, Justin Piché, Cathee Porter, The Circle Project, Miranda Riley, Isabel Scheuneman Scott, City of Kingston Heritage Services, Linguacom Translation, Georgia Ward
The P4W Memorial Collective is a group of women ex-prisoners from the Prison for Women (P4W) who are working towards the creation of a permanent memorial garden and community space on the grounds of P4W, in Katarokwi/Kingston, Ontario.
Through our work we honour the women who lost their lives in P4W, and uplift the stories of those women who survived.
