Join us for a day of workshops and discussion, sharing our learning from the Echoes of Holloway Prison Project.

Who is it for?
This session is intended for anyone who would like to learn about our project, how we ran it and what we learnt. Everyone is welcome but it would suit anyone interested in community engagement, oral history, community-led exhibitions, learning around difficult issues, contemporary stories and complex narratives.

What will happen on the day?
We will share our findings and give an insight into how the project has unfolded. The seminar will include:
• Project outcomes including volunteer-made films, oral histories recorded during the project and songs written by our resident artist
• Workshops and discussions examining collections and oral history; the role of empathy; ethics; and how we measured success in influencing opinion
• How the collaborative nature of the project has led to volunteers becoming crucial to accessible and nuanced outcomes
• Lunch included

Our Project
Until summer 2016 Holloway Prison was the largest women’s prison in Britain. Many well-known prisoners have passed through the prison since it opened in 1852, but there remain diverse voices unknown and unrecorded. Echoes of Holloway Prison has been a year-long project to record, explore and understand these stories. Personal testimonies collected on the project encompass women held as prisoners–from the suffragettes to the last prisoner to leave Holloway in 2016- as well as prison officers, governors, support and charity workers, health professionals and prison activists. By centring the experience of those connected to the prison the project has remained resolutely human, open and accessible.