La prison l'art et la légende
par Persimmon Blackridge

Persimmon Blackridge qui s'adonne à la sculpture en Colombie-Britannique, a collaboré avec Michelle Christianson et Lynn MacDonald à Doing Time : une sculpture commentée qui dépeint le vécu de femmes incarcérées, à l'intérieur et à l'extérieur des murs de leur prison. Cet article qu'elles ont aussi écrit ensemble, tente d'expliquer quelque peu ce vécu et l'essence de l'oeuvre d'art qui le dépeint.

Lyn: La réalité de la vie dans une prison contraste avec l'image qu'on en donne quelquefois au public, soit celle d'une existence de "camp de vacances".

Persimmon: On estime généralement que toute oeuvre s'inspirant de la politique est mauvaise. Mais je m'en moque. Le dogmatisme pose un problème dans ce genre d'art comme le sentimentalisme en pose un dans les oeuvres d'art destinées aux enfants.

L'art n'est pas .une langue universelle. Il n'y a que 2% de la population qui fréquente les galeries de peinture. Pour moi, ce chiffre ne s'applique pas car je ne tiens pas à séduire le seul "monde artistique".

Lyn: La prison ne sert pas d'effet préventif contre le crime. Pour moi, la meilleure leçon fut d'être obligée de réparer les dégâts que j'avais commis chez quelqu'un. Depuis, je n'ai plus jamais cassé une vitre.

Persimmon: Une de mes amies m'a dit qu'après avoir vu Doing Time elle s'est rendu compte qu'elle avait toujours eu des idées erronées sur les détenues. Leur silhouette, leurs paroles l'ont touchée au plus profond d'elle-même.

Michelle: Je veux simplement que les autres sachent que nous sommes des êtres humains.


Persimmon Blackbridge, a BC sculptor, collaborated with Michelle Christianson and Lyn MacDonald on Doing Time, a work of sculpture and words depicting the external and internal experiences of women in prison. This article, also a collaboration, attempts to include some of those experiences as well as discuss the nature of the art that depicts them.

Persimmon: I do a lot of art that's collaborative. I like the intensity, and the complexity, and the company. Lyn and Michelle are two of the people I'm working with on the series Doing Time. We decided to collaborate on this article too.

MYTH: WOMEN ARE REHABILITATED IN PRISON

Michelle: BULL! I have been in jail and it just made me a better criminal. During my time there, I learned how to apply for credit cards on bank accounts of dead people. I also acquired a heroin habit. Some of my friends have been in and out of jail most of their lives. Jail doesn't rehabilitate -- it does the opposite. If women were really offered a different lifestyle, that would be a more successful rehabilitation program.

MYTH: PRISON IS A HOLIDAY CAMP

Lyn: One time, I was in a medium security women's prison. While I was there, we saw a T.V show. None of us could believe it because it was a current show about the very prison we were in.

It portrayed women strolling along grass lined paths, playing games in the gym, sitting in comfortable-looking areas playing guitars and singing, making different kinds of crafts, etc. Our living quarters were called "cottages". To the T.V. viewers, it must've looked like we were living on a college campus.

Reality was a contrast. Each of the five "cottages" had twenty-five women in it. We had a common room with hard chairs in rows. The T.V. was always on, usually at the same time as the radio. No one had guitars and I rarely heard anyone sing. The grass-lined paths were feet away from chain link fences topped with rolls of barbed wire. A guard dog and male guards with guns patrolled these areas. There was an art room, and a library, but getting access to either of them was often next to impossible.

MYTH: POLITICAL ART IS BAD ART

Persimmon: When I was in art school, gospel was that political art is superficial, dogmatic and that other word -- didactic. But I did it anyway. I had a great teacher, Sally Michener, and we used to argue about it. Sometimes she'd come around to my point of view which is truly great in a teacher.

Political art is trendy now. But I'll argue about that myth again, for old times, because trends come and go but myths die lingering deaths and stink up the landscape for years. OK, what about Picasso's Guernica (the obvious)? What about Goya's Disasters of War (a classic)? What about centuries of art commissioned by the Church for its greater glory (propaganda)? What about scores of contemporary artists? Lisa Steele, Kim Tomczak, Carole Moseivich, Jeff Wall...


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