Ethical Tensions in Prison Art Education

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay urges artists who teach in jails and prisons to reflect on the ethics and responsibilities of working with incarcerated people, creating artwork, and engaging social justice issues. It draws on recent controversies surrounding artists who make artworks that address political issues but are perceived by some to be appropriating the suffering of others for personal gain. Teaching artists, the essay suggests, may want to give priority to their incarcerated students, refrain from making work that claims to represent those who are incarcerated, and instead focus their artwork on the ways in which their own experiences of teaching in prisons have transformed them personally.