Oh Hamdan, you are a prison, a prisoner, and a prison guard.

Ye, a prison, a prisoner, a prison guard.

A prison, a prisoner ye, Hamdan.

Ye, a prison, a prisoner. Oh Sudan.

Hamdan, a prisoner in Sudan.

– Ibrahim El-Salahi, Prison Notebook, 1976

In 1975, artist Ibrahim El-Salahi was imprisoned in Sudan’s infamous Kober (Copper) Prison after being wrongfully accused of involvement in an anti-government coup. After his release and during his subsequent house arrest, El-Salahi documented his experiences in detention through a series of 39 sketches and Arabic poetry and prose, later compiled into the Prison Notebook. 

El-Salahi recounts, “I started jotting it down in writing and drawing—the different images and the different places and the people I had met and what happened within those very, very high sandstone walls.” In a seemingly anxious, yet remarkable, attempt at resisting amnesia, El-Salahi documented incarceration “just to remember.”

For survivors, art is a way to document the reality of incarceration, process their experiences, and urge those on the outside not to “forget us here.” For prison impacted communities, art serves a similar purpose of documentation, processing, and the pursuit of justice. Prison art, such as the Prison Notebook, guide our imagination, expand our memory, and act as an invitation to carry the burden of, and shed light onto, the cruelty of incarceration.

Placing prison art from across the region in conversation with one another promotes drawing parallels between prison experiences, highlights the intentionality of carceral systems, and pushes the discourse to include prison impacted communities. This in turn, serves as an invaluable tool for current and future abolition, justice, and reconciliation efforts.

In an attempt to do just that, we launched our curatorial project, “A Prison, a Prisoner, and a Prison Guard:” An Exploration of Carcerality in the MENA Region. Building on and from the MENA Prison Forum’s existing art archive, we present prison art and artifacts from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. 

By juxtaposing works from celebrated pioneers like Inji Efflatoun and Ismail Shammout with contemporary voices such as Yassin Mohammed and Abeer Farhoud, viewers can navigate the cross-generational, human experiences of imprisonment often obscured behind prison walls and within individuals. This virtual exhibit unfolds as a “journey” across four stages of the prison experience.

The first stage, “The Architecture of Carceral Control,” aims to articulate prison as an intentional architectural and bureaucratic system. It is not just time in a cell, but rather a meticulously planned political apparatus. Art presented include photographs of physical architectures as seen through the Sudan “ghost houses” and material used to prime society to the idea of prison such as Mauresque Chez Elle by an unknown photographer. The goal of this stage is to recenter the prison experience away from a single moment in time––in many cases when a person is already in prison. It emphasizes that though detention may be arbitrary in many cases, the prison system is an intentional, meticulously planned “carceral network.”

The second stage, “Confronting Incarceration,” focuses on the experience of detention. This includes art about the feelings and conversations of the time, whether through art created during detention or later as a reflection as seen with the piece Most of the Time by Yassin Mohammed. This stage rejects the romanticization of prison, the concept of inevitable survival, and the creation of heroes. It also highlights the corporal punishment involved including food deprivation, crammed cells, solitary confinement, and torture as demonstrated by In a 3x3 Meter Cell We Were 15 Women by Azza Abo Rebieh.

The third stage, “Prison Impacted Communities,” is dedicated to art reflecting the effects of carcerality on loved ones. An experience that is often overlooked, this stage urges the viewer to expand their understanding of the “prison experience” beyond the cell and explore how prison impacts large portions of society. Including the works of Hafez Omar and Ayman Aref Saad in this section encapsulates the experience many Syrian prison-impacted families’ describe as “an oscillation between hope and pain,” regarding the fate of their loved ones.

The last stage, “Life After Prison,” centers the experiences of survivors’ and others’ after prison. Sometimes portrayed in a heroic light, the challenges following imprisonment impact individuals, families, and society as the various elements attempt to reconcile with one another. Here, we engage with works of art commissioned or created for the purpose of remembrance or advocacy, such as Fairuz Shamoun’s The Steadfast Mother.

By visiting the exhibit we hope viewers will grapple with the following questions: what “makes” a victim and perpetrator, where the prison experience starts and ends, and how abolitionist and reconciliation frameworks can be woven throughout the region’s carceral culture. There are no clear answers to these questions, and as such, the exhibit does not attempt to provide definitive answers.

As we embark on this collective journey, may we emerge with a renewed commitment to dismantling these systems of oppression and fostering a future rooted in dignity and compassion for all.

Our focus on prisons is a way to do justice by those who have been impacted by these traumatic, unforgiving, and unnatural systems. 

Sumaya Tabbah's work focuses on carceral systems, the experience of imprisonment, and the use of torture by state and non-state actors. She has previously worked as an Arabic translator on topics including refugees, prison literature, and media in conflict zones. Her interests lie at the intersection of reconciliation and human rights. She holds an MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution with a focus on reconciliation and justice and a BA in political science. She speaks English, Arabic, and Russian.

Susan Aboeid’s work focuses on humanitarian disarmament and the protection of civilians from indiscriminate weapons such as landmines, cluster munitions, and autonomous weapons. She is an ‘Emerging Weapons Expert’ with the Forum on the Arms Trade and explores the impact and implications of indiscriminate weapons on communities of color and in the Global South. Susan holds a BA in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. She speaks English and Arabic.

Prison Everywhere is the Same

An Interview with Artist Yassin Mohammed 

Inkstick, May 2, 2024