The End of the Sentence
Film, Photography and Archival Research, 2020 ongoingHMP Holloway (1852-2016) was the largest women’s prison in Western Europe and the only women’s prison in London. Those incarcerated there were freedom fighters such as the Suffragettes and the Greenham Common women. However, the majority were imprisoned because of poverty and injustice, addiction and abuse. The physical transformations of the prison’s architecture o between 1852 and 2016 reflected shifting views on the nature of women, crime and punishment. The prison was redesigned and rebuilt between 1971 and 1973, with the imposing Victorian panopticon structure replaced by a red brick building resembling more of a hospital surrounded by social housing. An aerial map of Holloway in its later years resembles the intestines of the human body – a series of corridors, known as the ‘trolley route’, connecting different areas of the prison. In 2016, HMP Holloway was decommissioned, and the 10-acre prison site was purchased by Peabody Trust in 2019. In response to the closure of HMS Holloway, the coalition group Reclaim Holloway was formed in 2016.
In making the work, Price’s approach draws on local and consensual knowledge, situating her research in the particularities of a place and collective interactions through groups and organisations working around Holloway. This includes her continued activities with the coalition campaign group Reclaim Holloway, whose members include ex-prisoners, forensic psychotherapists, NGO’s such as Women in Prison (WIP), the Women’s Resource Centre (WRC), the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS), Sisters Uncut, residents, artists, architects, academics, and museum curators. Together, they identified a range of interconnected social issues and needs related to the future use of the decommissioned prison for public good. To this end, they called for the construction of social housing, green spaces and a dedicated Women’s Building as a transformative justice project - rather than a criminal justice project - addressing Holloway’s legacy and helping vulnerable women stay out of the criminal justice system.
The first iteration The End of the Sentence was a solo exhibition as the Stanley Picker Gallery, presenting initial research developed through relationships formed via the campain group Reclaim Holloway The exhibition reflected on the impact of the criminal justice system on women, featuring new work by Price, archival material, and contributions from artists and writers invited by Price, including Erika Flowers, Carly Guest and Rachel Seoighe, Hannah Hull, Katrina McPherson and Nina Ward.
As part of the project, Price presented a new moving-image installation The Good Enough Mother, in collaboration with Dorich House Museum. The work features a bronze sculpture of a baby by Dora Gordine (1895-1991), acquired for the first Mother and Baby Unit at Holloway Women’s Prison in 1948. The film’s soundtrack explores incarcerated pregnancy, drawing on transcriptions from 28 interviews conducted by midwife Dr Laura Abbott, as well as field work and writing of forensic psychotherapist Pamela Windham Stewart.
Price’s photographic work, included in the exhibition, draws on her time spent in the decommissioned prison building, which she lives directly behind, and on intimate objects from the prison held in the Islington Museum archives. Phoenix Rising depicts the Griffin mosaic at the base of the swimming pool installed during Holloway's 1970s redevelopment. At the time, it was argued that women and girls at Holloway required adequate exercise not only for their health but also to prevent more destructive releases of energy. There is also evidence of prisoners swimming with their visiting children in the 1990s. Photographs of hair and a fire hose plug examine less obvious traces of prison control. In the event of a fire in a cell at HMP Holloway, a small yellow plug was removed from the door and a hose inserted, blasting water into the cell before allowing the inmate to evacuate.
Price is currently in post-production with further work bringing together seven years of research, activism, collaboration and filming.
Generously supported by Arts Council England; Elephant Trust, UK; Stanley Picker Gallery, UK; Dorich House, UK; Cinenova, UK; Radical Film, Berlin; Department of Allied Health and Midwifery, University of Hertfordshire, UK; Kingston University, UK; Born Inside, UK; Clean Break, UK; Women in Prison, UK; Reclaim Holloway, UK; Community Plan for Holloway, UK; and Peabody; The National Justice Museum, Nottingham, UK, and Islington Museum, UK; Metropolitan Archive, UK; the City of London and Islington Council Planning Office, UK; the National Justice Museum, UK; and the Museum of London.