Art as Rehabilitation Remembrance and Reform
Discovery Day
5 April 2023
Creativity in prison
Years of working as an artist within the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany have given Angela Findlay unique insights into the destructive and costly cycle of crime, prisons and re-offending. In today's thought-provoking first lecture she offers a deeper understanding of the minds, lives and challenges of offenders. With extraordinary slides of art projects and prisoner’s art, she demonstrates how within the process of creating art of any discipline, there are vital opportunities for offenders to confront their crimes and develop the key life skills so essential in leading a positive and productive life.
In the second lecture Angela addresses Germany’s complex post-WW2 process of ‘coming to terms with’ the atrocities of its recent past and the counter memorial movement that started in the eighties and continues to this day. Germany’s very specific situation rendered all traditional concepts of monuments and memorials irrelevant and inappropriate. Instead of commemorating their own losses, German artists created art forms that responded to questions of apology and atonement: How does a nation of former persecutors mourn its victims? How do you remember what you would rather forget?
The third lecture explores how, over the past 150 years, artists across the world have been using the humble chair, not only as a representation of domestic or everyday life, but often as a conduit for profound ideas on themes of protest, absence and memory.
Angela Findlay is a professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long career of teaching art in prisons in Germany and England. Her time ‘behind bars’ and later as Arts Coordinator of the London-based Koestler Arts, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation.
In the past decade Angela’s Anglo-German roots led her to research Germany’s largely unknown post-WW2 process of remembrance and the extraordinary culture of 'counter memorials' and site-specific artworks that emerged to express national shame and apology. With the current debates on statues and monuments, the ways Germany has tried to deal with its dark past is more relevant and inspiring than ever.
Angela has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy (specialising in colour) and her paintings have been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her book In My Grandfather’s Shadow, expanding on the above subjects, was published by Penguin Transworld in July 2022.
Angela Findlay