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Carceral Performance, Histories of Prison Arts, and Liberatory Memory Work in Rideout’s The Ballad of The Whistling Man

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Bartley, Sarah (2026) Carceral Performance, Histories of Prison Arts, and Liberatory Memory Work in Rideout’s The Ballad of The Whistling Man. In: Carceral Arts. Bristol University Press, Bristol. (In Press)

Abstract

How can arts practice can be used as a resistant strategy to record cultural practices and creative experiences in prison? In this chapter, I take up Michelle Caswell’s exploration of ‘liberatory memory work’ (2021) – practices that ‘center oppressed communities, using records and archives to invert dominant hierarchies caused by white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, and other forms of oppression’ – to consider how creative practices can produce liberatory historiographies of the lives of people in prison (2021:12).
 
My discussion centres around The Ballad of the Whistling Man, a creative collaboration between men in an English prison, me (an artist-researcher), and two UK based arts organisations: Rideout Creative Arts for Rehabilitation and the Irene Taylor Trust. Together we co-created a  ballad, comprised of six songs, exploring the history of music in English prisons and penal colonies from the Victorian period to the present day. Throughout this chapter I analyse my ethnographic notes, the song lyrics, and other materials produced by co-creators, with a specific focus on the potential of creative practice to: 1) facilitate the involvement of community members in constructing their own histories; 2) disrupt linear temporalities in the archive; and 3) challenge entrenched perspectives about arts practice in prisons.

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