In 2016, over one hundred years after it first opened its gates, HMP Holloway said goodbye to the last woman within it's walls and closed the final chapter of a famously controversial history.
With that backdrop of it's deserted corridors, five Clean Break Members who each spent time in the prison, envision what possibilities lie beyond it's closure in a collaborative short-film project with documentary filmmaker Clare Richards.
Part of the London Festival of Architecture (LFA) and created by Ft’work in collaboration with Sarah Wigglesworth Architects, Without Walls explores the experiences of our Members in Holloway, the impact it has had on their lives and the tensions caused when social and physical boundaries collide.
In a series of hard-hitting, poignant, and at times funny conversations, Members discuss the harsh realities of prison life; from the claustrophobia of confinement in shared cells, antagonistic staff, nauseating sounds, daily stampedes just to get clean and the debilitating effects that prison has on a person’s state of mind.
Each woman shared the sentiment that confinement within prison has far more detrimental affects than positive, and that alternative systems must be put in place.
Content notices: Criminalisation, prison, mental ill health
Credits
Filmmaker: Clare Richards
Producer: Ft'work
With thanks to the Clean Break Members who took part
