The Pen is Mightier than the Sword curiated by Daniel Sexton.

People in prison are cut off from their families, communities, and sometimes even their countries. Making art in this context is not just a form of expression but a way of communicating. The work in this exhibition acts as a brief anthology of such moments of communication. It allows us to see the power of art as it speaks of human experience. And the work that speaks of prisoners’ connections with family and community.

The power of art in prison is the power that is universal in all art, an act of survival and an act of the survival of human feeling and the human spirit. Creativity in prison is nothing new: from the prison art of the Napoleonic Wars to the secret GULAG writings of Solzhenitsyn, art survives behind bars as it has survived in every arena of conflict, stress and human challenge. The human spirit is strong and each piece of art created in prison reminds us of the grandeur of the human spirit and the capacity of the human heart to celebrate and remember our human connections. Our family and our memories.

This exhibition gives an insight into the kind of art-work that is currently made by prisoners who attend the Education Unit in Cork Prison. Through the different media of ceramics, drawing, painting, graphics, photography, sound and sculpture. The improvised (and confiscated) tattoo machine gives us a glimpse of a sub-culture within the prison and shows the ingenuity and creativity of the prisoners. Using the machine, they become the art work themselves.

Art in prison is about learning through the medium of art, learning about art and about themselves. Opening up conversations - with themselves, their families, their community and through this exhibition, with the wider public. The artists talk about questioning their own ideas and offering new perceptions to the community and the public, saying we are not just the sword (our negative or destructive actions) but also the pen (our creative selves).

Spike Island, where the Young Irelander John Mitchell worked on his Jail Journal and the poet, Edward Walsh, was a teacher, is a fitting home for an exhibition like ‘The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword.’ The island is steeped in national history relating to detention – from Cromwellian prisoners to those awaiting deportation during the famine to those imprisoned here between 1985 and 2004 when the Department of Justice took over the island. This exhibition brings us up the July 2014 and the creativity alive in Irish Prisons today.