No Lockdown in the Imagination
2020 outdoor installation
Artwork from the 2020 Koestler Awards
12 November – 13 December 2020
Outdoors at London’s Southbank Centre and online
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This autumn, we are delighted to present a powerful installation across the outdoor spaces of Southbank Centre.
Creativity has been prisoners’ escape and saviour during the pandemic. Using limited materials and unlimited imaginations, people across our criminal justice system have kept themselves going.
Being creative has helped me survive my prison sentence, I go to a different place when I’m thinking of ideas and then making them out of whatever I can find.
Koestler Awards entrant, 2020
No Lockdown in the Imagination showcases some of this important artwork, which was entered into this year’s Koestler Awards, despite all the challenges faced by the criminal justice system. Visual art and poetry are emblazoned on the windows of Southbank Centre, alongside audio performances of poetry and spoken word entries.
Our installation title quotes Lemn Sissay MBE, whose blog entry on 3rd May 2020 read: “The reason prisoners can create extraordinary art and poetry is because there is no lockdown in the imagination.”
Exhibition photographs by Tom Carter
