Working with Bedford Prison
BCA Creative Exchange is a programme of informal networking events for creatives across Bedford Borough. It provides opportunities for freelance creatives to build connections, share ideas and explore common goals. Participants represent a broad range of creative disciplines and career stages, from emerging practitioners to established professionals.
As part of the programme, the Working with Bedford Prison project aims to connect local creatives with HMP Bedford and explore opportunities to deliver creative activity within a prison setting.
Following an introductory workshop at HMP Bedford, participants were invited to attend a follow-up session featuring two guest speakers with extensive experience of arts delivery in prisons.
Sara Turner, a local arts practitioner currently delivering sessions at HMP Bedford, spoke about her experience of working in the prison and outlined her ongoing project, Words from the Wing. Supported by the charity Invisible Walls, her work is primarily focused on prisoners aged 18–25.
Sara discussed some of the challenges of working in a prison environment, including the time required to build trust, high levels of illiteracy, language barriers and additional learning needs. Practical constraints can also be significant, with sessions often limited to around one hour, including entry procedures, setup and pack-down time. Sara also expressed a willingness to support other artists by offering shadowing opportunities.
Chris Millin, Director of Community Arts Projects UK, shared insights from his many years of working with prisons nationwide. He brought examples of participant artwork and highlighted the importance of a user-led approach, emphasising that “half the battle is getting their ideas.” He also noted the value of certificates as a means of recognising achievement and encouraging engagement.
Chris provided an overview of the arts-in-prisons landscape, including opportunities to collaborate with charities and partner organisations, and ways to showcase prisoner artwork beyond the prison environment. He explained that all of his prison-based projects have been commissioned and funded directly by prisons rather than through external funding sources. Looking ahead, there may be opportunities for local creatives to shadow his work on existing projects.
From the prison’s perspective, there is interest in both large-scale creative projects and longer-term programmes focused on wellbeing and personal development. Larger projects can help foster greater public understanding and empathy, while ongoing creative activities can provide meaningful support for prisoners.
Next steps
We are now in discussion with the workshop attendees and HMP Bedford to develop ideas for creative projects across a variety of artforms. BCA will support individual artists and collaborations that are ready to develop proposals for HMP Bedford, whether through prison-funded commissions or externally funded projects. The intention is not necessarily for these initiatives to be delivered as BCA projects, but rather for BCA to facilitate and support creatives who wish to undertake this work.
