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mrpg writes:

Making art can be a kind of escape, and it's hard to think of a place that begs louder for escape than death row. For inmates facing the death penalty, art offers a way to define their own identity and assert their existence to an audience far beyond the confines of their cell and long after their execution.

The relationship between prison and creative pursuit is long and strong. Writing has historically been the go-to creative outlet for prisoners, as it can be achieved with minimal resources and the product can be hidden or secreted in and out of cells. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote The Gulag Archipelago from the forced labour camps of the former Soviet Union. Martin Luther King Jr wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Alabama. And, in a sign of how art and form evolve with time, US rapper Gucci Mane even recorded some verses of his 2010 album Burrprint 2 over the phone from prison.

In prisons in the US, Europe and Australia, visual art classes and resources are now available to more inmates than ever before. These programmes have been shown to have a positive influence on the immediate and long-term behaviour of prisoners – though often the resources allocated to them are scarce. When these aren't available, innovation often prevails, with paints made from crushed sweets or instant coffee.

[...] "Generally, but more extremely on death row, part of the incarceration process involves stripping away your identity as a human being," [Margot] Ravenscroft says. "The expression of art is a way of redressing that dehumanisation and identifying yourself as an individual and as a member of society."

Source: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170126-the-death-row-inmates-who-make-art

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