By Damien Linnane. Published in Issue 15 of Paper Chained in September 2024.
It was May 2023 and I was in Nairobi, Kenya for the Ninth International Cure Conference on prison reform. I wrote about both attending the conference and meeting Kenyan artist and former prisoner James Mutugi back in Issue 11. Something I didn’t write about the time, however, was a suggestion James made to me. After explaining that Paper Chained received art from current and former prisoners all over the world, James asked if I’d ever had an art exhibition to show all those works. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind yet, but that same month I also received an unexpected package of paintings from Cameron Terhune in California, who unbeknown to me had been receiving Paper Chained after it was printed and posted to him by a friend in Arkansas.
James’ suggestion and Cameron’s paintings got me thinking about exactly how many contributions we’ve received over the years from prisoners in New Zealand, England, the United States, and of course, Australia, just through the natural course of running the magazine. And with the addition of two paintings from James Mutugi, I now had prison-related artwork from five different countries. I decided to put some feelers out and see how many more I could get. Over the next several months I reached out to groups like Koestler Arts, a charity that teaches art to former prisoners in the UK, Empowerment Avenue, which supports artists in the United States, and La Cana, a group that goes into Mexican prisons to teach women in custody skills including craftworks and embroidery. Several people in custody also reached out directly to me after I put out a callout for works for the proposed exhibition in Issue 11 as well. For months, packages of prison art were turning up at my house and gathering in a pile in one corner of my kitchen. I ended up with 108 works, from 45 different people in eight different countries. Two of those works are the ones on the covers of this issue. Special thanks to Alvin Smith in Michigan for our front cover, and Jayde Farrell in NSW for the back cover.
I’d been part of eight group art exhibitions by this stage, and also had six solo shows myself, including one in San Francisco. But Paper Chained International is the first show I’ve ever curated. It turns out that curating an art exhibition, especially one involving art from around the world, is a pretty difficult task. I was having Zoom meetings with people overseas at all times of the day, and we ran into one logistical issue trying to import some artworks, with delays at customs. It was also hard for individual artists in prison to get their work to us in some cases. If they couldn’t give it to friends or family outside on visits, permission had to be obtained to post us some of the larger works. We also had to obtain permission from Queensland Corrective Services to display the works of Ashley McGoldrick; only half way into collecting art did I learn there internal policies in that state against displaying artwork from people in prison or on parole without prior approval. Once we’d received all the artworks and paperwork, installing the works at Long Bay Correctional Centre’s Boom Gate Gallery was a full day’s job, but thankfully the gallery staff have done this many times before and were very helpful. As is customary, 75% of the money from artworks sold at Boom Gate goes back to the artist, which gave some of our overseas and interstate contributors the chance to earn some money while participating in our show.
With the art on the wall the main thing left was the launch night. I think every curator worries their show won’t get a big enough launch party. My fears, however, practically disappeared when NSW Governor Margaret Beazley offered to open the exhibition. Listening to the Governor’s speech and then addressing a crowd myself certainly made the months of work all feel worthwhile. An interview I did on ABC Radio Sydney the weekend after the launch also drew a big crowd of visitors. Paper Chained International stayed up for the entire month of May at Boom Gate. It was a huge honour to put together the show, and I can’t thank our artists enough for participating.
