Anonymous Artists: Questioning concealed authorship in the content, interpretation and audience relationships of prison arts

This interdisciplinary study will critically consider how the enforced/adopted use of 'anonymous' as a simulacrum for creators of visual art in English prisons impacts the content, reception, interpretation and efficacy of these artworks. At a time of continuing public punitiveness (Cheliotis, 2014) and growing incarceration rates (England & Wales have the largest per capita prisoner

population in Western Europe), this is a timely project. It will contribute to questions of penal spectatorship and the place of the arts in practices of social exclusion (Garland, 2001; Brown, 2013). It will advance knowledge in the emerging field and genre of prison arts and will contribute to criminology and prison sociology.