Staging Justice: Documenting Histories and Investigating Interdisciplinarity in the work of Rideout
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Department Name: Faculty
Abstract
Rideout (Creative Arts for Rehabilitation) established in 1999, is a leading organisation delivering arts interventions in the criminal justice system in the UK. Unique in their interdisciplinary approaches, continually evolving models of practice, and sustained engagement with public understandings of the justice system, critical examinations of Rideout's practice are limited in performance studies and criminology. Their significance within the UK prison arts landscape offers scope for a series of creative public engagement activities and innovative research methodologies. This fellowship will take place over 24 months around the company's 25th year and critically engage with Rideout's body of work, paying specific attention to their interdisciplinary creative practice, provocation of public conversations around justice, and historical significance within the wider network of arts and criminal justice practitioners.
Beyond a specific engagement with the company, this research will reorient research and practice agendas to focus on the political and aesthetic value of interdisciplinarity, a distinctive aspect of Rideout's work, arguing that this is a productive and under-utilised strategy to both critically and artistically explore the complexities of prison sites and experiences of incarceration. In focusing on interdisciplinarity, this theatre based project will foster collaborations with scholars and practitioners in music, dance, and neuroscience to explore how these different modes of work and critical perspectives (when held alongside performance) might open up new understandings of incarceration both within and beyond the field of prison theatre. Finally, the research will investigate the complexities of, and propose specific approaches to, archiving the work of prison theatre organisations at a time when there is a growing interest in the histories of established arts and criminal justice companies in the UK.
This project will ask 1) How has the work of Rideout Creative Arts for Rehabilitation contributed to and shaped prison arts practices, public understandings of justice, and policy reform in the UK over the past 25 years?; 2) What new knowledges of carceral sites and understandings of incarceration can be produced from utilising an interdisciplinary approach in arts projects that engage people in prison?; 3) What strategies can archival practice offer to capture the acutely ephemeral nature of prison theatre practices and how might contemporary arts and criminal justice practitioners be supported to engage with the emergent histories of this field?
The project will deploy several methodological approaches and deliver various collaborative activities. Interviews with the Rideout team, board members, artists and participants who have worked with the company, and other practitioners working in arts and criminal justice will create an oral history of Rideout. Collaboration with Bristol Theatre Collection will create a publicly accessible archive of the company's work which will be drawn on for this research. Three interdisciplinary Creative Residencies will be coordinated in collaboration with Rideout at partner prisons to explore how interdisciplinary approaches operate in their work. These residencies will be documented ethnographically in order to critically interrogate this model of creative practice. Finally, a practice-as-research approach will be taken to conduct a series of research-informed theatre workshops, delivered in collaboration with Rideout, for people with experience of prison to explore and dramatise Michel Foucault's foundational text on justice and imprisonment, Discipline and Punish.
Rideout's extensive body of work and relatively long history provide significant opportunities for Bartley to enhance her capabilities in specific research practices (oral history and archival, Practice-as-Research, ethnography) that are gaining traction within arts and criminal justice settings.
Beyond a specific engagement with the company, this research will reorient research and practice agendas to focus on the political and aesthetic value of interdisciplinarity, a distinctive aspect of Rideout's work, arguing that this is a productive and under-utilised strategy to both critically and artistically explore the complexities of prison sites and experiences of incarceration. In focusing on interdisciplinarity, this theatre based project will foster collaborations with scholars and practitioners in music, dance, and neuroscience to explore how these different modes of work and critical perspectives (when held alongside performance) might open up new understandings of incarceration both within and beyond the field of prison theatre. Finally, the research will investigate the complexities of, and propose specific approaches to, archiving the work of prison theatre organisations at a time when there is a growing interest in the histories of established arts and criminal justice companies in the UK.
This project will ask 1) How has the work of Rideout Creative Arts for Rehabilitation contributed to and shaped prison arts practices, public understandings of justice, and policy reform in the UK over the past 25 years?; 2) What new knowledges of carceral sites and understandings of incarceration can be produced from utilising an interdisciplinary approach in arts projects that engage people in prison?; 3) What strategies can archival practice offer to capture the acutely ephemeral nature of prison theatre practices and how might contemporary arts and criminal justice practitioners be supported to engage with the emergent histories of this field?
The project will deploy several methodological approaches and deliver various collaborative activities. Interviews with the Rideout team, board members, artists and participants who have worked with the company, and other practitioners working in arts and criminal justice will create an oral history of Rideout. Collaboration with Bristol Theatre Collection will create a publicly accessible archive of the company's work which will be drawn on for this research. Three interdisciplinary Creative Residencies will be coordinated in collaboration with Rideout at partner prisons to explore how interdisciplinary approaches operate in their work. These residencies will be documented ethnographically in order to critically interrogate this model of creative practice. Finally, a practice-as-research approach will be taken to conduct a series of research-informed theatre workshops, delivered in collaboration with Rideout, for people with experience of prison to explore and dramatise Michel Foucault's foundational text on justice and imprisonment, Discipline and Punish.
Rideout's extensive body of work and relatively long history provide significant opportunities for Bartley to enhance her capabilities in specific research practices (oral history and archival, Practice-as-Research, ethnography) that are gaining traction within arts and criminal justice settings.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Sarah Bartley (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |