Having my work appraised on its own merits, not connected to my status as a prisoner, was an uplifting experience.
– Koestler Awards entrant
Changing lives on the inside
People in prisons, secure hospitals, young offender institutions, and immigration removal centres across the UK make art every single day – poems, paintings, sculptures, music.
Koestler Arts offers participants a chance to share that work with an audience and connect with the world as an artist, rather than through the label of prisoner.
Our programmes and resources give prison tutors and individuals something to build around, and serve as a platform for other charities in the sector, supporting them to encourage their beneficiaries to create.
Many people enter the Awards year after year, and as the creative work accumulates, so does the evidence of what creativity in secure settings makes possible.
Evidence & Evaluation
Changing minds on the outside
Most people in the UK will never visit a prison. Koestler Arts exhibitions, publications, and online showcasing closes the distance between audiences and artists within, or with experience of, the criminal justice system. Thanks to partnerships with established art venues across the UK, regular publications of written work and poetry, as well as a strong digital presence, we are able to let the art speak for itself and open conversations.
Upcoming exhibitions and eventsIn their own words
Beyond statistics, accounts from people who have directly benefited from our work paint a fuller picture of why people enter the Koestler Awards and what they take from the experience.
From all walks of life, and often with very different experiences of time in prison and other secure establishments, some go on to study, publish, or teach, while some come back to hand out the awards they once received or work with us. Some people choose to tell us their Koestler Story.
Read Koestler stories