Reasonable men might have acted likewise: a practice-based investigation of the Strangeways Prison protest

My practice-based archival research will look at the Strangeways Prison protest and riot of 1990, moving outwards from the pivotal moment in the chapel when a prisoner rose to protest in front of the congregation. Inadvertently recorded by the Chaplain, the recording has never been heard in public. The subsequent riot lasted 25 days, involved 300 men and was widely covered by the media. Prisoners scaled the roof and communicated their mistreatment by the prison system to the media with messages on blackboards. This research project examines the act of attempting to speak freely in an environment where one does not have the freedom to do so, taking the prison as a place of non-representation where self-determination is extinguished. I will revisit the initial protest, an under-investigated event in the most significant prison riot in British penal history and employ experimental filmmaking to reconsider what happened that day.
Experimental filmmaking offers innovative tools to interrogate and re-present multiple historical subjectivities and sensibilities. Jeremy Deller describes 'The Battle of Orgreave', his filmed battle re-enactment of a miners' strike clash with police, as "...digging up a corpse and giving it a proper post-mortem", or as "a thousand-person crime re-enactment.". My research continues in this tradition by employing a range of conceptual and technical filmmaking strategies to test out different documentary modes of representation. I will build on preliminary research carried out at the National Archives and interviews with former staff and prisoners. As someone who has had members of their immediate family spend time in prison, my project will reflect upon personal knowledge and experience, exploring autobiography's potential through my own art practice.
This PhD will test out a multiplicity of approaches to re-consider a singular historical event and by employing multi-levelled forms of re-representation exploring wider issues concerning visibility and self-determination.