The current cultural climate is intensified within the prison environment, where issues such as addiction, housing instability, family breakdown, and mental health challenges frequently intersect. These overlapping pressures create complex conditions that shape daily life for prisoners while also increasing the demands placed on those supporting rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
The 2026 project brings together mapmaking and mask fabrication as a way of exploring prisoners’ memories and lived experiences of people and places. Working across ceramics, textiles, and pyrography, and drawing inspiration from artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Paula Rego, and Grayson Perry, the works engage with historic maps of Cork city and contemporary craft-based figuration.
The resulting characters operate as playful and often comedic expressions of escapism and imagination, developed through energetic and expressive mark-making. While deliberately exaggerated and absurd, they carry a strong sense of humour and inventiveness. Together, they reflect the resourcefulness and creativity that emerge within shared prison environments, offering a grounded interpretation of artistic expression under constraint.