This project seeks to conduct the first empirical investigation of artists in English prisons. Its main research question is: who are prisoner artists and how does the experience of imprisonment shape their identity, artistic outputs and their reception within and beyond prison walls? While imprisonment is a predominantly detrimental experience, actively curtailing fundamental freedoms and animating our cultural infatuation with harsh and long punishments in Western neoliberal societies, the arts - in their various manifestations from visual art, sculpture, music, theatre, poetry and creative writing, among others - are thriving inside prisons. The arts in prison play a fundamental role in enabling for prisoners an otherwise inaccessible opportunity for expression and act as a significant source of education, therapy, and communication with the outside world. The arts have also been increasingly mobilised by penal institutions as one of the main ways in which objectives such as rehabilitation and tackling recidivism can be addressed, a strategy that has a long, if somewhat turbulent, history. This project seeks to understand this curious symbiosis between the arts and imprisonment, and how and why artistic identities emerge in penal settings. It will provide the first comprehensive examination of the role that the arts play in the lives and identities of serving and former prisoners and by deploying qualitative and arts-based methodologies it will enable a systematic engagement with prisoner arts, to advance our understandings of the emotions of punishment, the impacts of imprisonment, the experiences, coping and resistance strategies of prisoners and the political messages we can derive from prisoners' artworks. The study will curate a comprehensive account of prisoner arts as a distinct art genre. It will unpack the potential of the arts in A) articulating the experience and effects of imprisonment; B) transforming the lives and trajectories of prisoners and former prisoners; C) acting as means of political expression in an otherwise repressed institution, connecting those inside with audiences outside. This latter aspect will also inform the public engagement activities of the project which seek to utilise the affective power of the arts to alter public perceptions on issues of crime and justice and showcase the impact that prisoner arts can have for individuals and communities alike. The project seeks to make a substantive contribution to prison studies, criminology, socio-legal and community arts and outsider arts research by advancing a conceptual toolkit for studying the ambivalent relationship between contemporary punishment and creative expression. The project involves empirical fieldwork including interviews with prisoners, former prisoners, arts therapists working in prisons, and arts practitioners and educators in prisons. It also involves ethnographic observation of short arts-courses offered in prisons and analysis of artworks created by participants and of prisoner arts available in the public domain. The project will include the organisation of a major, international workshop engaging a range of practitioners and stakeholders in policy-informed and research-led discussions on the future of prisoner arts. It will host the largest prisoner arts festival of its kind at Warwick Arts Centre, co-produced with former prisoners who are artists. It will also create the first digital archive of prisoner arts to be hosted at Warwick's Modern Records Centre to promote future research and wider engagement with prisoner arts. The project will also produce a website that will showcase prisoner artworks and findings from the project, and host podcasts and blogposts on carceral aesthetics and the experience of becoming an artist in captivity. Academic outputs will include a monograph, two peer-reviewed articles and media outputs at arts-based, prisoner-led and criminal justice platforms.

George Eliot's novel Middlemarch, set in a fictional version of the city of Coventry, will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2021; the year in which Coventry itself is UK City of Culture. This project will reimagine George Eliot's radical artistic vision of 'provincial life' in the Midlands through creative collaborations in Coventry across 2021. There is evidence from a previous AHRC project led by PI Livesey that public interest in Eliot's life and legacy is sometimes held back by the perceived difficulty (and length) her work, but that this can be overcome through creative engagements with her work in the shape of new writing, the visual arts, and research-led social media campaigns. This project will work with diverse communities in Coventry in 2021 to retell Eliot's story and the ground-breaking literary experiment of Middlemarch, with the people living in the city which it fictionalised. The project will work with local and family history groups to build a collaborative online exhibition, telling the story of 19th century Coventry through a dozen professions and institutions that feature in the novel. The exhibition research will be in partnership with the Herbert Museum and Coventry Archives, and Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery and be told through materials in their archives and collections. This collaboration, drawing on Livesey's expertise in literature and public engagement, will enhance the ongoing work of these museums as they develop a new interpretation strategy for their extensive collections relating to Eliot. In order to draw fresh attention to Eliot's significance as an artistic innovator for audiences unfamiliar with her novels, Co-Investigator Olsen will work in dialogue with Livesey to research and direct an experimental short film. The film, 'Of that Roar Which Is...', will use Olsen's own poetic and filmic language to respond to Eliot's art of attention to life forms that might otherwise go unnoticed. The work will demonstrate Eliot's ongoing cultural influence of contemporary practice and draw on the physical landscape of contemporary Coventry and the collections of museum and archive partners. Building on Olsen's previous creative reinterpretations of museum collections and reputation for research-led film-making, the new film will be shown at partner museums. It will form a useful model for long-term reflections on the place of contemporary arts in reinterpreting the narratives of established collections. The final strand of the project will bring scenes from Eliot's novel to life in three sites in central Coventry during 10 public performances in autumn 2021. Partners Dash Arts will lead devising workshops with community groups in Coventry. The participatory process will identify key themes from the novel for contemporary Coventry. Participants will be offered opportunities to take part in the professional production, supported by Warwick Arts Centre, Principal Partner in Coventry City of Culture. Founded in 2005 Dash, develops productions, events and participation projects that enhance diverse audience's understanding of other peoples and cultures through an artistic lens. 'Scenes from Middlemarch' will use Eliot's novel and Livesey's research to open out conversations with often overlooked middle of Britain through participatory devising and performances. Emphasis is likely to fall on the novel's interest in narratives of public health, and the power of bankers, exploring trust and communication in a changing community.