Koestler Trust Exhibition to be curated by ex-offenders

People serving community sentences or who have recently been released from prison will work with artist and project facilitator, Trish Scott, to curate an exhibition which will be on display at Turner Contemporary in 2019. They will select from over 700 pieces created by people in prisons, young offender institutions, secure hospitals and others on probation across Kent and Sussex.

The project is the result of a new partnership between Kent, Surrey and Sussex Community Rehabilitation Company, the agency responsible for supporting and supervising low and medium risk offenders in the region, Turner Contemporary and the Koestler Trust, the UK’s best-known prison arts charity.

Around ten participants will take part in eight sessions over several weeks in November and December 2018 as part of efforts to rehabilitate and integrate them more closely with civic life and their community.

The Koestler Trust is the UK’s best-known prison arts charity, working across the whole of the British criminal justice system – in prisons, secure hospitals, immigration centres, young offender institutions and in the community. The Trust runs the annual Koestler Awards to motivate people to participate in the arts, and to showcase the talent and potential of people in the criminal justice system to the public. Around 3,000 people enter the Awards each year.

The Kent Surrey & Sussex Community Rehabilitation Company Ltd works to reduce reoffending and in so doing, improve people’s lives – potential victims as well as perpetrators of crime. We work with people who have been sentenced by a court to either custody or community supervision and who are classed as low to medium risk.

The exhibition opens at Turner Contemporary on 1 March 2019.

Partners: