Woma(e)n incarcerated: freedom through expression
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Date
2010-08-03
Authors
Byrne, Sarah Eve
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Abstract
Architecture possesses the ability to
perform a transformative role in society.
The opportunity to explore this
ability exists in the prison/ incarceration
arena as the problems posed
by crime and punishment are part of a
larger societal debate, and as such
there is the need for a new architectural
response. This thesis seeks to
propose a new incarceration-hybrid as
a means of rehabilitation to alleviate
a certain section of the female prisoner
demographic, through the medium
of art expression and performance as
a means to allow prisoners a freedom
and exploration of their identities.
The thesis will explore the various
social factors and structural inequalities
that have led women to transgress
the law in South Africa, taking
into account the oppression of women
through, or because of their bodies
and loss of identity. Once the subject
group has been explained, understood
and placed into context, the thesis
will move on to examine the notions of
space within the existing penal reform
system, with a specifi c focus on how the
body-mind space is acted on in space
and time as a means of institutional
control. Once an understanding of how
a process of institutional identity is
established and how this affects individual
identity and the process of
rehabilitation, the new hybrid will be
theorized in terms of how the facility
can counteract the process of identity
moulding (or stripping) to replace
the process with one of expression and
identity exploration underpinned by
the rehabilitative theory. An analysis
of the potential spaces in the hybrid
will also be theorized in terms of how
the body-mind space will potentially
be acted on in space and time, to show
how self expression can be used as a
counterpoint to the process of mortifi -
cation. This thesis will draw on various
theorists and frameworks to discuss
notions of body, mind, space and time
from diverging angles and how these
are used institutionally to control and
punish as well as how this is currently
expressed architecturally, inhibiting
the process of rehabilitation.