Kyiv: Ukrainian voices curate Ukrainian culture. This series is produced in collaboration with the Folkowisko Association/Rozstaje.art, thanks to co-financing by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia through a grant by the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe. It has been translated from Ukrainian by Iryna Tiper and Filip Noubel.
According to Global Voices, for those who end up behind bars, the perception of the world changes. Time slows down. Space is limited by a perimeter of barbed wire. But no one wants to lead their life as cattle on a farm. And thus creativity awakens in many.
Pavlo Selezen, a native of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, served his sentence in correctional colony No. 116 in the city of Sumy. Sashko Gres served his term with him. He knew how to make knives, says Selezen. Knives were made in the work area of the prison under the supervision of guards. Nothing could be brought back from that space into the living areas of the prison. Prisoners made many things in the colony: backgammon and chess games, boxes, icons, rosaries, cigarette holders, and pipes for smoking tobacco and hemp. The imprisoned men channeled their creativity into the work, and all of it was aesthetically appealing.
After his Soviet-era military service in Kazakhstan during the 1990s, Selezen’s cousin Yurko Havryk returned to Ukraine and found himself penniless and jobless. He joined a gang and ended up behind bars. Gambling games were popular among prisoners, mostly dice and cards. Those were all hand-made: a dice was molded from bread, then painted with shoe polish. Holes were pressed with a match and filled with white toothpaste. The cards were made from ordinary postal paper, glued in several layers for strength.
Yurko also shared stories about other souvenirs: candlesticks, wooden mugs, cane knobs, Cossacks. In Selezen’s collection, there is an artifact made of wood representing a Hetman’s mace lying on a football boot, possibly made for the Euro 2012 championship in Poland and Ukraine.
The famous Ukrainian film director Serhiy Parajanov was sentenced to five years in prison in 1974 during the Soviet period. In captivity, he became interested in collages made from scraps of fabric, foil, pieces of barbed wire, fragments of broken dishes, and magazine reproductions. Parajanov was imprisoned in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, where he likened the Donbas dumps caused by mining to the Egyptian pyramids, and the prisoners’ situation to biblical slavery. Many of Parajanov’s collages were made in prison, according to his Ukrainian wife Svitlana Shcherbatyuk. He created about 800 collages while in captivity and wrote letters to his wife about other camp artists who created tattoo exhibitions on the backs of friends.
Tattoo art as social identity also plays a significant role in prison culture. Pavlo Selezen, with tattoos of Jesus on his left shoulder and a scorpion on his neck, explains that tattoos are a way to assert one’s identity in prison. Religious images, patriotic symbols, and even cynical tattoos like “Hell’s Stoker” are common. These tattoos serve as a form of social identity and expression within the confined environment.
Art historians refer to artifacts created by non-professional artists as “art brut” or outsider art, which stands outside traditional art institutions. Prison art is often created spontaneously during moments of emotional upheaval, representing an abnormal state of the artist’s psyche.
Reading and writing are common among prisoners. Director Oleg Sentsov, imprisoned in a Russian occupation prison, wrote a series of stories during his five-year sentence. Religious scholar Igor Kozlovsky and journalist Stanislav Aseev, imprisoned in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, found solace in writing notes to maintain their spirit and mind.
In women’s prisons, self-made artifacts like marochki, gift handkerchiefs with colorful images and inscriptions, are significant. These handkerchiefs often feature symbols of virginity, innocence, and fidelity, as well as religious images as reminders of criminal sin and repentance. The art of prisoners is exhibited in Ukraine, showcasing their creativity and resilience.
Despite being deprived of rights, many prisoners realize the value of creativity and art. Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right freely to enjoy the arts.” The artistic efforts of prisoners contribute to their social rehabilitation, with Ukraine ranking among the highest in the number of imprisoned individuals within the Council of Europe, making prison art increasingly visible.