As part of Prisoners Abroad’s ongoing research project with Cambridge University, Institute of Criminology on desistence from crime after imprisonment abroad, two creative workshops were facilitated by Sarah Phillips of Caravan Arts. The aim of the sessions was to enable participants to explore ways to represent their ‘memorable moment’ (which may or may not have been related to imprisonment) through creative arts. The artwork created here will go on display at two exhibitions later this year – keep your eyes peeled for more details! Sarah has kindly agreed to share a little more about herself, her process, and her work with Prisoners Abroad.

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Q. Could you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get into facilitating these workshops and what are some of the other projects you've worked on?

A. I have worked in participatory and socially engaged arts since my early ‘20s when I was volunteering and studying for a Visual Culture MA in Manchester, researching local regeneration and place and the role arts could have in giving voices to communities and creating spaces for resistance. Since then, I have lived in Bristol, Wales, London and now Somerset. I have been privileged to work as producer and artist-facilitator with wonderful, diverse communities. These people have incredible stories to tell and so much to contribute, but have been othered and excluded from society for who they are or where they have come from. I have worked primarily with refugees, asylum seekers and elders, using creativity as a tool to help them explore and express their identities, experiences and stories.  

Since 2017, I have run my own non-profit participatory arts organisation in a vintage caravan, a kind of mobile story gatherer, which formed the basis of my PhD research on art and migration, and storytelling in the diasporas. The research created spaces for older West Indian and West African women to come together with others around a fire in parks and streets of Deptford, south-east London, sharing wisdom, memories, and stories of survival and resistance when migrating to the UK. The project helped them become more empowered and visible in public spaces they felt erased from. 

In other work I co-produced a community radio show for 2 years in London, worked on exploratory audio, zine making and printing projects with local displaced and disadvantaged communities, traveller families and older residents in Bristol and Somerset. I have also taught students at UWE, Bristol for over 10 years in Art and Social Change, focusing on arts’ potential for activism in the public realm. I am hoping to run a project this year with a local group of artists with learning differences and the most extraordinary creative talent!

Q. How do you plan for a workshop, particularly when the subject matter is likely to be quite heavy and emotional?

A. At the core of my practice is deep listening, co-production and focus on collaborative process, in different sites and spaces, responding to and weaving in cycles of nature, embodied knowledge, place and environment. Through my research and work with communities, artists, storytellers and art therapists, I have learnt the importance of listening to people and how they choose to express themselves, creating a safe, inclusive and often radically different space for people to share experiences in their own way and find connections with others.

In my workshops, I invite people to engage in material-led exploratory activities to explore the healing potential of arts. Handling clay for example has a dual role; it can offer a multi-sensory, meditative activity that helps participants to feel calm and also think about how they want to represent themselves, that is non-prescriptive with no right or wrong. I offer open-ended, sensory workshops, that encourage imagination and play, but also have a lot of built in flexibility to accommodate people's needs. This provides choice and agency over what participants create and where they want it to go. Sometimes the workshop is a rare area of life where they can feel control.

Creative activity can help people work through possibilities, process pasts and reimagine futures, it has the power to transport you to other times and places in an instant. Often when making work, conversation can turn to difficult issues and feelings, and I believe my role is to hold space for this and guide it gently to ensure people feel heard and others feel safe. People need to share their experiences in some form, and by honouring this with genuine listening, this can offer the most incredible support; as long as the space is well held, with boundaries and respect for people's feelings and experiences. On a practical level, I would always ensure I have shared safeguarding policies with other team members and that we have another space for someone to go to if they need time away from the group.

I believe strongly these are the most potent qualities of art; to create spaces for people to come together, share experiences, reflect on and reimagine their stories, and listen to one another. These are all so important to create more empathy, understanding, hope and healing in this world. 

Q. Can you talk a bit about the two workshops you ran for Prisoners Abroad and how each of the sessions unfolded?

A. The first was exploratory, allowing participants to get to know one another and feel comfortable. We did some light touch, creative activities with clay and drawing, to allow participants to relax and immerse themselves in the creative process rather than outcome. This allowed them to connect them with their environment and themselves, checking in with how they were feeling. 

Then we turned to the brief and introducing the co-production process and our principles of listening. We looked at other artists, and discussed the overarching aim of the project; to produce a piece based on a memorable moment. From here I introduced journals to show people the value of note taking, sketching and planning.  The participants were so engaged and inspiring from the off, with very strong ideas around their practice and how to produce their pieces. it was a privilege to work with them to make a plan for how they would proceed. 

Over the Christmas holidays, I was in touch with them all remotely and regularly, so the second session allowed us the space to move into a more focused discussion of each person's work for the exhibition. Though I had creative activities planned, this session became an example of a truly participant-led workshop. The group had grown in confidence notably, and all wanted to share their creative work. Their poetry readings and sharing of ideas were incredibly moving and powerful, and this sparked a very important and eloquent exchange between participants, finding shared experiences and discussing their observations, particularly of gendered experiences in incarceration. The mutual support in the group and honesty and courage shared by all was extraordinary, told through their individual, creative practice.

By the end of the session, we had a plan for everyone's artworks, and had valuable discussions about how the participants wanted to curate their works and the exhibition as a whole. The pieces vary widely from poetry projected onto walls, a before/ after installation of 2 rooms, a soft sculpture, a zine and a mirror and text piece about a transformative and spiritual encounter with a swan. All the works have come from the heart and are brave, raw and beautiful. They are a hugely talented group and I am very excited to see it all come together!

Q. How did the workshops tie in with Prisoners Abroad's wider research project in partnership with Cambridge University on desistence from crime following imprisonment abroad? 

A. The brief was to support participants to explore ways to represent their most memorable moment on returning to the UK through creative arts. It arose out of a series of semi-structured interviews with participants by the research team at Cambridge University, Institute of Criminology. An exhibition of their creative outputs and will form part of the dissemination of the research findings for wider audiences. The exhibition will be held at the Institute of Criminology as part of the Cambridge Festival running from 16 March - 2 April 2026. It will bring visibility to participants’ experiences and allow them to be seen as people, and not through the label of ‘ex-offender’.

It has felt a truly valuable and profound process. The honest and courageous sharing of the participants’ experiences can teach so much about growth, resilience, transformation and survival.

Q. What were some of the key themes that came up?

A. Some of the themes included:

• Participants deep reflection on their experiences;
• The choice to go under or survive and grow;
  Transformation, the othering and shame people have had to experience since being out, ‘once people know who you are they will never forget’;
• having to hide their true identities;
• Fear, anxiety, loneliness, incredible strength;
• Desire to help others, humour as a tool to get people through, support;
• Survival, strategy, deep knowledge and learning;
• Developing the ability to read people,
• The importance of being listened to, having another chance;
• Overwhelming gratitude for the support of Prisoners Abroad and for being seen as human beings.

Q. What was the most powerful or memorable thing that came out of the PA workshop?

A. It was incredibly moving to hear the participants’ find shared experiences of their life in incarceration, and the strategies they had to develop. Their stories of transformation are truly inspiring. They showed such compassion and respect for each other, which helped build confidence with sharing work in the exhibition.

One participant’s words have stayed with me: “We do not have a criminal mindset, we go in there with an artist’s mindset!” This is a very important lesson about reclaiming identity and shifting perspectives.

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You can find Sarah at www.caravanarts.org.uk and @caravan.arts on Instagram. 

Keep track of the wider research project here: Desistance after Imprisonment Abroad | Institute of Criminology 

A huge thank you to Shelter From The Storm for kindly hosting both workshops in their cafe space. You can read about the great work Shelter From The Storm do to provide emergency accommodation to people experiencing homelessness on their website.