Art therapy. An art therapist watches over a mental health patient during an art therapy workshop in Senegal. Definitions of art therapy vary due to its origins in two fields: art and psychotherapy. It can focus on the art-making process as therapeutic in and of itself ("art as therapy") or it can be “art in therapy” (art psychotherapy). The psychoanalytic approach was the earliest form of art psychotherapy. This approach employs the transference process between the therapist and the client who makes art. The therapist interprets the client's symbolic self-expression as communicated in the art and elicits interpretations from the client.[1] Analysis of transference is no longer always a component.
Current art therapy includes a vast number of other approaches such as: Person-Centered, Cognitive, Behavior, Gestalt, Narrative, Adlerian, Family (Systems) and more. The tenets of art therapy involve humanism, creativity, reconciling emotional conflicts, fostering self-awareness, and personal growth.[2] ArtTherapist.ca. Art Therapy | Expressive Arts Therapy. Prison Art - The Outsider Pages. The best inmate work is not delimited by prison conditions -- which includes extracting art materials from the trash -- but reflects them mostly as points of departure. Michael Harms started to carve before entering Stateville in 1991, but he certainly never would have wound up "cutting soap," as he calls his work, otherwise. Perhaps he would not have begun producing work of such astonishingly refined detail, either. In Harms' work prison craft becomes the medium through which the artist expresses himself.
Here is Harms' own explanation, in a letter: "My work isn't associated with guns, violence or bizarre stuff. It isn't meant to be. It's not made and I never learned it just because I'm in prison. "I'm not impressed with my work because I know what I can do with the proper materials. . . . Despite Harms' diffidence, his chairs, none more than a couple of inches high, are marvels not only of craftsmanship, but also of concentration.
Sometimes the figures are staggering. Lines of Resistance: Prison Art from the Middle East / Library / Home. They are inviting us, in intricate ways, to their private lives that were publicly brutalized. Their tale of years of prison in Evin connects us to an untold history. They depict images and voices of courage, kindness, compassion, betrayal, cowardice, or brutality that stubbornly stay in our head. Azadeh, Sousan, and Shadi’s first and final word is “We Lived to Tell.” [i] In 1979, the Shah of Iran was deposed through a nationwide revolution. In the last few years, former political prisoners from the Middle East, in particular Iran, have met regularly to create art as a mode of expressing resistance against authoritarian regime in a project called Words, Colour, Movement: Remembering and Learning Through the Arts. Lines of Resistance: Prison Art from the Middle East is a mixed media work produced by former political prisoners from the Middle East, notably Iran and Turkey, as well as artists standing in solidarity with them.
These are the facts about capital punishment in Iran: Memories, Memoirs and the Arts. Statement by Ahmed Kathrada. South African political prisoner who was imprisoned for 26 years in Robben Island. This statement is mounted on the Robben Island Museum wall. Click here for a high resolution image. Words, Movements, Colour: Remembering and Learning Through Narrative and Visual Art June 19th, 2010 Project Description - Poster Ansar Camp, Lebanon 1983 Click here for a hi-res version A missing page in a vibrant history of Iranian women activism since the 1970s is the struggle of women political prisoners. With the coming to power of the Islamic regime in Iran, women became the first target of political and social suppression.
Over the years, some of the prisoners who served their prison terms have been able to leave the country. This literature is significant in its own right, although it is perhaps unique in its details about Islamic theocracy and the gender dimension of its penal practices and policies. BighouseArt.com Prison Art.