Curated by Joelle Taylor
2 November – 17 December 2023
Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY was our 16th annual UK exhibition at the Southbank Centre, featuring nearly 200 artworks across visual, writing and music categories entered into the 2023 Koestler Awards for art in the criminal justice system, by individuals in prisons, secure mental health facilities, immigration removal centres, young offender institutions and on community sentences across the UK. Having worked in prisons for over twenty years, Joelle Taylor’s motivation for this exhibition was to showcase the talent and imagination that springs from secure settings. Choosing from over 8,000 pieces sent into the 2023 Awards, the poet selected artworks that showcase both excellence and ingenuity. These qualities were shown in different ways by the artists, through concept, skill and story-telling, as well as through the use of unusual materials that highlights their resourcefulness. These included artworks made from crisp packets, prison issue soap, rice, seeds and even clinical waste bags.
Shaped by her own work, Joelle’s focus settled on the idea of vitrines and glass display cases as a way of exploring themes of separation and connection. The title, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, encouraged visitors to complete the well-known phrase with ‘break glass’. All the artworks were encased in various ways, whether literally or metaphorically, and this design helped draw attention to these themes. Visitors were invited to think about the way we present and look at things and how it feels to be on either side of the glass.
Listen
Listen to the music featured in this year’s exhibition, played through telephones and headphones.
Age recommendation: 18+ (May contain language some people might find upsetting)
Listen hereFrom the curator
Hear from the curator Joelle Taylor about this year’s exhibition, and take a look at some of the pieces on display.
Watch hereThanks
This exhibition is made possible by the generous support from individuals, trusts and foundations, businesses and organisations.
Special thanks to our exhibition partners, the Southbank Centre, and our exhibition sponsors: Elysium Healthcare, Sodexo Justice Services and Serco.
The writing categories, our biennial poetry anthology and the Voices from Prison even are kindly supported by the T.S. Eliot Foundation.
The Visitors’ Choice Awards for the public’s favourite exhibited artworks have been funded by Doughty Street Chambers.
Online Gallery
See a selection of work that features in this exhibition below

Day in the Life of Bob
HM Prison Isle of Wight (Parkhurst), Themed Category: A Day in the Life, 2023

Untitled
Atkinson Secure Unit (secure children’s home), 18 and Under Commended Award for Pastel, 2023

Hard as Nails
Greenwich Youth Offending Service, New Beginnings Silver Award and 18 and Under Commended Award for Photography, 2023

Sea of Hope
HM Young Offender Institution Polmont, Space Station Sixty-Five Platinum Award for Photography, 2023

Melancholy
Arbury Court (secure mental health unit), Elysium Healthcare Commended Award for Portrait, 2023

Not All Black and White
HM Prison & Young Offender Institution Drake Hall, Bronze Award for Watercolour & Gouache, 2023

Fine Art
HM Prison & Young Offender Institution Rochester, Good-Sothinathan Commended Award for Digital Art, 2023

One Day in the Life of 3361
HM Prison Standford Hill, Patrick Holmes Platinum Award for Themed Category: A Day in the Life, 2023

Quiet Contemplation
HM Prison Full Sutton, Caro Millington Highly Commended Award for Sculpture, 2023

Though Blind, I See Everything
HM Prison Full Sutton, Sir Stephen & Lady Winifred Tumim Gold Award for Sculpture, 2023
I Wish the Judge Could See
‘Take him down,’ the distant Judge intones.A fog descends; my life now shifts its course.
A sudden freefall, down a hundred floors,
and land, bedazed on unknown, shifting ground.
A bureaucratic Frankenstein, this place,
its mismatched parts, all blindly glued and stuck.
A spark of life; the creature creaks and groans.
Untamed, the jail becomes a beast (unknown).
The men who enter (sadly hurt and shocked)
become invisible, transparent, mute,
and what was theirs: removed, excised, undone.
The group in grey now pawns awaiting orders.
Except they’re not just pawns, these prisoners —
diverse and able — Castles, Knights and Bishops.
The prison’s work? All talent blindly squashed.
It makes no sense; I wish the judge could see.
HM Prison North Sea Camp, Silver Award for Poem, 2023
I Wish the Judge Could See
I Wish the Judge Could See
HM Prison North Sea Camp, Silver Award for Poem, 2023

A Day in the Life of Soap
HM Prison Littlehey, Sally Taylor Silver Award for Themed Category: A Day in the Life, 2023

Two Sides to Every Story…
HM Prison Isle of Wight (Albany), David Skinns Gold Award for Painting, 2023

Choose Life
HM Prison Lowdham Grange, Highly Commended Award for Themed Category: A Day in the Life, 2023

Through the Judas Hole
HM Prison Lewes, Margaret Goff Outstanding Debut Award for Watercolour and Gouache, 2023

A Day In
The Spinney (secure mental health unit), Outstanding Debut Award for Themed Category: A Day in the Life, 2023
Kaleidoscope
Through chaos, form and function,A brave new world glimmers fleeting.
Hidden through a lens unfocused,
The geometry of the living appears.
HM Prison Maghaberry, Molly Tandy Highly Commended Award for Poem, 2023
Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope
HM Prison Maghaberry, Molly Tandy Highly Commended Award for Poem, 2023

The Call Home to Child During Covid
Prisoners Abroad, Pierce Brunt Highly Commended Award for Portrait, 2023

Dance of Emotion
The Hellingly Centre (secure mental health unit), Highly Commended Award for Digital Art, 2023

Complex Mirror
The Hellingly Centre (secure mental health unit), Commended Award for Digital Art, 2023
Graffiti Poem
Beyond watching eyesWith sweet and tender kisses
Our souls reached out to each other
In breathless wonder
And when I awoke
From a vast and smiling peace
I found you bathed in morning light
Quietly studying
All the messages on my
phone
HM Prison Long Lartin, Open Window Silver Award for Poem, 2023
Graffiti Poem
Graffiti Poem
HM Prison Long Lartin, Open Window Silver Award for Poem, 2023

Irony
HM Prison Downview, Edmund Paton Walsh European Unity Highly Commended Award for Needlecraft, 2023
Living
We live our lives afraidof the mistakes we’ve made.
We’re afraid of the people we may become
so we turn off hope and choose to be beautifully numb.
We’re afraid of our failures so we’ve become content with mediocrity
we’d rather stay in our sanctuary
than take the risk that comes with opportunity.
We make excuses about the places we come from
and the things we can’t change.
We need to take this negativity, and in our headspace rearrange.
I’m writing this from the stomach of a whale
where I am swallowed but still alive.
I’m writing this determined to do more than just
survive.
HM Prison Bure, Outstanding Debut Award for Poem, 2023
Living
Living
HM Prison Bure, Outstanding Debut Award for Poem, 2023
Encapsulated
Contented in Perspex dome he sprawledQuietly observing whilst turning, enthralled.
At the scene below, containing –
Beneath the slender cloudy apron –
Fresh sunlight illuminating mountain fissures,
Glorious light falling on churning oceans and twisting rivers.
That blue, the primary colour, does not reflect his mood,
Now rainbow-ed hues appear during Nature’s duels.
Chemically changing and constantly transforming
Myriads of textures, microscopically, reforming –
Landscapes, those best appreciated from lofty tokens,
Aged, craved for, vistas of which many have spoken.
And huge green swathes, primordial forests, our lungs,
Home to countless species which we’ve sadly expunged.
As we battle, in an seemingly endless war to vanquish,
Inhabitants by cutting, digging and building, to vanish –
Our history and precious ancestral sites,
By conglomerated removal via machined might.
Destroying, yet proclaiming each generational win,
Whilst Mother Earth watches, weeping as she spins.
Tears that fall amid thunderous stormed fury
Upon virgin and populated ground to flood and bury
The garish blight of Man’s demands,
His industrial scars with scant amends.
That unadulterated desolation from political tempest and war,
Despite suited claims, ‘this is the last, there’ll be no more’.
But time marches on clocks and history repeats,
Bringing death, pestilence, conflict and no food to eat.
And the cost? Really, just how can it be measured?
Certainly not by the development of what’s deemed treasure.
For our fragile jigsaw are land blocks reformed at our will,
During which process needless blood is often spilled.
There’s simply no cohesion, no empathetic ideal,
To unite those on a planet on which we constantly wheel.
These, were his thoughts during another orbit made,
One marking an entry in just another of Earth’s days.
HM Prison Buckley Hall, Commended Award for Poem, 2023
Encapsulated
Encapsulated
HM Prison Buckley Hall, Commended Award for Poem, 2023

Regrets
HM Prison & Young Offender Institution Chelmsford, The Company of Arts Scholars Under 25s Special Award for Portrait, 2023

After Eggleston and Lear
HM Prison Grendon, Translation, Transmutations, Transpositions Bronze Award for Photography, 2023

Tree of Life Always Watching
HM Prison Standford Hill, Commended Award for Themed Category: A Day in the Life, 2023

A Portrait of W.H. Auden
West Bromwich Probation Service, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Gold Award for Portrait, 2023
Sky
Sometimes I lie on the grassand watch the clouds in the sky,
feel the sun on my face,
listen to the seagulls.
I close my eyes,
and there could be a glass of wine just out of reach.
But this is not the same sky,
and these are not the right seagulls.
HM Prison La Moye, Commended Award for Poem, 2023
Sky
Sky
HM Prison La Moye, Commended Award for Poem, 2023

Life Through My Eyes
HM Prison & Young Offender Institution Norwich, Baseroom Outstanding Debut Award for Drawing, 2023

Card and Envelope
HM Prison & Young Offender Institution Moorland, Commended Award for Handmade Greetings Card, 2023

A Day in the Life of a Black Man
HM Prison Gartree, Doorway Outstanding Debut Award for Mixed Media, 2023

Tea Cosy Pete
HM Prison & Young Offender Institution Parc, Reg Gadney Platinum Award for Drawing, 2023

Don’t Just Listen, Hear!
HM Prison Onley, Transformation Commended Award for Watercolour and Gouache, 2023

‘Oppin Dahn in Kent
Canterbury Probation Service, Frederick Davies Commended Award for Watercolour and Gouache, 2023