LOOKING INSIDE HMP HOLLOWAY

Power Play Productions and The Daddyless Daughters Project presents a groundbreaking exhibition of photographic portraits, letters and films from 30 former prisoners of HMP Holloway. The exhibition will run over International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month 2023.

Showcasing 30 ex-prisoner contributors of different ages, races, classes, and gender-expressions, LAYERS: LOOKING INSIDE HMP HOLLOWAY is an immersive exhibition of photographs, films and letters that reveals the breadth of lives touched by the criminal justice system.

The photographs and films were shot on location at the derelict HMP Holloway site in north London, before demolition began this year. HMP Holloway was the largest women’s prison in Europe until 2016, housing many thousands of women over 170 years, from the suffragettes to Greenham common protesters. The 10-acre site was acquired by Peabody in 2019 and is currently being turned into housing.

Women in prison are often depicted in stereotyped and voyeuristic ways. LAYERS overturns that. It platforms a group of 30 individuals who have gone on to be poets, funeral directors, mums, CEOs, boxers. It challenges reductive simple stereotypes of prisoners we see in films and on TV.

This exhibition is the culmination of a year-long community project centred around the Holloway site’s closure, working with former prisoners to explore what this site meant to them. LAYERS created access for former prisoners to return to the derelict site in a therapeutic and trauma-informed way, to tell their stories. This project was built around the agency of the contributors – they decided to return to Holloway, how they wanted to be depicted, what to wear, who to write to, what to say.

Showcasing thirty contributors, the exhibition shows the breadth of individual experiences found in the criminal justice system. At the same time, it also shines a light on systemic patterns of trauma, poverty, and abuse that disproportionately impact women prisoners: over half the women in prison report having suffered domestic violence with 53% of women reporting having experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child (Prison Reform Trust)

It gives visibility to voices that very rarely gain access to speak for themselves on a national stage.

LAYERS presents portraits of thirty former prisoners who have gone on to become mums, CEOs, boxers, Funeral Directors and more. Women in prison are depicted in shockingly stigmatizing ways. This project overturns that. Inside the abandoned, peeling cells of HMP Holloway we filmed each contributor reading out a letter. Returning to Holloway, everyone decided how to show up, what to wear, who to write to. This set the stage for a highly intimate, powerful and emotional process that we captured.

Their stories are extraordinary – Mandy, who was abused from the age of four and an addict from 11, now has an OBE for running women’s shelters. Danny, in Holloway as a woman, is now an award winning male boxer. Ashsa became a funeral director after she learned the healing power of grieving when her dad died. Toyah did two degrees in prison and is now a youth support worker. The resilience, sisterhood, and triumph over adversity in these stories is astonishing. They also shine a stark light on the systemic issues of abuse, trauma, and poverty that so clearly intersect with female incarceration.

Copeland Gallery, 133 Copeland Rd, Peckham, London SE15 3SN

Wednesday 8 March 6pm-9pm

Thursday 9 March 11am- 8pm

Friday 10 March 11am -8pm

Saturday 11 March 10am-5pm

Sunday 12 March 11am -5pm

Admission: Free. https://www.copelandpark.com/events/