Carceral Aesthetics. Art and Everyday Life in Prison

Abstract

The paper aims to focus on everyday life in prison following a double perspective, a historical and a contemporary one. First, the historical phenomenon of prison graffiti will be investigated in connection with one case study: the graffiti in the prisons of the Holy Office in Palermo. Subsequently, the effect of making art in today’s prisons both on space and on inmate life will be taken into account. The overall aim of this twofold reading is to show to what extent making art in prison can be seen as a strategy of activation of those relational and familiarizing processes which bestow an aesthetic value on everyday life.