Our 2025 Art Tutors Seminar

Each year, the opening day of our annual exhibition at Southbank Centre brings together a remarkable group of art tutors from secure settings across the UK. They join us for a dedicated seminar – a space to share experiences, explore challenges, and celebrate the transformative power of creativity behind walls. We asked our Director of Outreach, Sarah Matheve, to share her views and uncover what makes these gatherings so valuable and what lessons they offer for our work at Koestler Arts. 

Every Koestler Arts exhibition is an important opportunity to recognise and celebrate creative achievement. First and foremost, this means the achievements of our entrants; the many prisoners, secure patients and people on probation who bravely submit their creations into the awards each year. 

However, Koestler Arts exhibitions are also a celebration of the work done by the education staff, occupational therapists and workshop leaders who help their learners feel brave enough to enter the Awards, who encourage their participation and who do lots of that tricky admin required for entries to finally reach us. 

This is why, since 2008, we hold a special event for visual arts tutors who work in secure settings. We feel it’s very important to give them the chance to see our national exhibition at the Southbank Centre, to network with each other, see the award winning artwork from a range of categories and establishments but, most importantly of all, so that we at Koestler Arts can thank them in person for the role they play in making the awards and, in turn, the exhibition possible. 

Ever wondered why Koestler Arts has a themed category? This was a suggestion that came from an art tutor’s seminar over ten years ago. They suggested one category should be a theme to give people a starting point for their creative piece in case they were stuck for an idea. Likewise, printmaking was also introduced as a category a few years back, in response to a suggestion that originated from this forum. 

Each year, this event also serves a wonderful opportunity to hear behind-the-scenes snippets about how or why certain works were made. At this year’s seminar, we discovered the meaning behind the title of “The Precise Perspective: The Blemish”. The tutor explained it was a drawing destined for the bin because the person who drew it could see a blemish on the paper. The tutor helped them overcome their far too critical eye to realise that what they saw as a blemish that spoiled the work, was in fact hardly visible to anyone else; almost unnoticeable if you don’t know where it is. Indeed, we challenge you to find it in the picture – we certainly can’t!

We also got to appreciate just how much winning a Koestler Award means to our entrants. Hearing art tutors describe award winners literally jumping for joy, being left speechless or being moved to tears and desperate to let a loved one know about their success is such an incredible testament to the importance of the Awards – the power that having one’s work recognised can have on building self-esteem and of feeling valued. 

This year it also allowed us to ask art tutors a very important question: “why so many minions?” We get a vast array of paintings, sculptures and origami models depicting minions each year. Inua noticed this when curating the exhibition over the summer. He decided that some deserved a place in the 2025 exhibition. So, if you have had a chance to visit you will see a fair few dotted about. We took the opportunity to ask art tutors why minions are so popular among submissions to the Koestler Awards – thinking that if anyone knows why they are so popular, it should be the art tutors! Our curator, Inua, thought it was because many people in prison are making work for their children, another idea in our team was that they are relatively easy to draw. So, what profound reason for minions did the art tutors give? 

…I’m afraid they didn’t know! 

– Sarah Matheve, Director of Outreach, Koestler Arts