We have invited School of Abolition curator Thomas Abercromby to deliver a weekend-long public programme at Grand Union this November. The School draws on contemporary art and activist practices to challenge the UK’s prison industrial complex while providing a support structure that recontextualises and opposes the very idea of carceral logics towards community-based models of safety, support and prevention.
Working with a variety of communities and activist groups based in Birmingham and beyond his series of events will explore themes of communal healing and transformative justice as they relate to Alberta Whittle’s exhibition We gather and dream of new congregations.
In early 2019, artist and curator Thomas Abercromby worked with the Springburn community council in Glasgow North to help conduct a design charrette. The charrette consisted of a series of hands-on workshops that brought people from different disciplines and backgrounds together over several months to explore the area’s regeneration ambitions. The charrette assembled an interdisciplinary team consisting of city planners, community members, council officials, architects, creative practitioners, parks and recreation officials, and other stakeholders to create a design vision for Springburn. During this time, a community crime and safety meeting took place regarding an announcement by the Scottish Prison Service to build a mega-prison to replace HMP Barlinnie in the area by 2025. The consensus from the group was that the proposal was counterproductive at tackling crime. Instead, it would only further stigmatise poorer communities and offered those in power an easy ‘solution’ to deal with Scotland’s ever-growing social inequality. The proposal was discussed at length. However, conversations never questioned the expansion of the prison industrial complex or the alarming incarceration rate in Scotland, the highest in Western Europe.
The School of Abolition (SOA) was born out of those conversations in Glasgow. SOA is a long-term action research project that draws on contemporary art and activist practices to challenge the UK’s prison industrial complex. Since its inception, artists, academics, writers, activists, and other guest contributors have been invited to share abolition praxis as a way of reimagining our criminal justice system through a free public programme of readings, publications, workshops, screenings and public art displays. The School collaborates closely with communities and activist groups to provide a support structure that recontextualises and opposes the idea of policing, prisons and other carceral logics working instead toward community-based models of safety, support and prevention.
The Moon Spins the Dead Prison Q&A
Join School of Abolition curator Thomas Abercromby and researcher and community worker Ros Liebeskind to discuss the SoA publication The Moon Spins the Dead Prison on Saturday 26 November, 11am-12pm.
The Moon Spins the Dead Prison brings together a collection of essays that explore the meaning, practices, and politics of prison abolition from local, national and global positions and perspectives. The publication includes new texts by Harry Josephine Giles, Che Gossett, Hussein Mitha, Lola Olufemi, Koshka Duff & Connor Woodman, accompanied by a collection of new drawings by artist Jamie Crewe and an introduction by Thomas Abercromby, Rosie Roberts & Phil Crockett Thomas.
A is for Activism: workshop
Join Birmingham-based mutual aid group A is for Activism for a workshop responding to the themes of our current exhibition We gather and dream of new congregations by Alberta Whittle and The Moon Spins the Dead Prison a publication by School of Abolition Curator Thomas Abercromby at Grand Union on Saturday 26 November 26, 1pm-3pm.
The workshop will explore how the prison industrial complex and surveillance companies are used as a political tool to repress colonised and exploited people, looking at Palestine and political prisoners.
Starting out as a book club, A is for Activism is a voluntary not-for-profit organisation and international community hub for political education, love, class consciousness, mutual aid for survival, and solidarity.
Places are limited and can be booked on the Eventbrite page here. If you are no longer able to attend, please email info@grand-union.org.uk to let us know.