“San Quentin, what good do you think you do?

Do you think I’ll be different when you’re through?

You bend my heart and mind and you warp my soul,

And your stone walls turn my blood a little cold.”

Although Johnny Cash never went to prison, his iconic songs written for and performed in prisons, made prison reform authorities sit up.

Prison is a strange institution. Punishment? Reform? Rehabilitation? Through the ages, prisoners were always used for free labour — to build monuments, railways or work in farms. Sometime these tasks were creative in nature, such as the mosaic floors of the Victoria and Albert Museum that were cut and assembled by women prisoners, or the ceramics or carpets made by prisoners in Pakistan.

With prison reform, vocational training was introduced and prisoners had the option of earning money. It was seen as a way to offer options that could change lives of criminals upon release from jail. It was intended as a form of industry.

With prison reform, vocational training was introduced and prisoners had the option of earning money. It was seen as a way to offer options that could change lives of criminals upon release from jail. It was intended as a form of industry.

In 2005, IG Prisons of Sindh Nusrat Manghan and the artist Sikander Ali Jogi decided to experiment with teaching fine art to prisoners, to allow self-expression and provide spiritual solace. In 2007, a room with a sign saying ‘Art Class’ was opened in Karachi Jail, and three students enrolled — one serving time for drug trafficking, one for murder and one a political prisoner. Since their release, one is earning good money as a street artist in the UK, and another is a painter in Dubai. The whereabouts of the political activist are not known.

More than half of the prisoners in Karachi jail are under trial, and not yet convicts. One cannot imagine their state of mind waiting — often for years — before their case comes to trial. Some found their peace in art. Sikander has taught 1,200 prisoners over 10 years; in 2013, art classes began in the women’s prison as well. Exhibitions are held both in the prison and in the city’s galleries. The artist prisoners are relocated to cells near the now expanded studio, forming an unusual artists’ commune.

History is filled with people whose creative spirit triumphed over the dehumanisation of imprisonment.

Ibn Maqlah, who transformed the Arabic script from basic Kufic strokes to a harmoniously structured art form, was imprisoned three times, had first his right, then his left hand and then his tongue cut off, but his creative energy remained intact.

Activists gained fire and inspiration from their incarcerations. Thoreau wrote his essay Civil Disobedience, Martin Luther King Jr his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Napoleon and Gandhi, wrote their autobiographies, Wittgenstein and Gramsci formulated their philosophies and even Hitler wrote Mein Kampf during his incarceration.

Many poets and novelists composed some of their best known works from prison — Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mahmoud Darwesh, Hasrat Mohani, Habib Jalib, Oscar Wilde, Dostoyevsky, Voltaire, Solzhenitsyn to name a few. Cervantes wrote Don Quixote while in prison. Rustichello da Pisa penned the recounting of the travels of his fellow prisoner, Marco Polo. Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte D’Arthur, John Bunyan The Pilgrim’s Progress, Sir Walter Raleigh wrote his History of the World and many sonnets.

Perhaps Oscar Wilde’s ‘Little tent of blue which prisoners call the sky’ where walls stand between the individual and his freedom, enforces self-reflection. In the grim homogeneity of the prison, creativity is one way to ensure individuality is not lost.

Many inventions also came out of prison: the game of squash, the modern toothbrush, and America’s first assault rifle — the M1 Carbine.

Stalin imprisoned over 400 aviation engineers and then created the “Experimental Design Bureau” in prison when he realised he needed their input during the war.

Fewer artists have ended up in prison, not even those who committed murders such as Caravaggio and Cellini, or broke the law in other ways; Picasso was not prosecuted for receiving stolen art works, Banksy was not arrested for vandalism. The crimes of those who have the backing of patronage, or a successful clientele seem to escape imprisonment. In UK, less well-known graffiti artists are sent to prison at the rate of one a month, sometimes for as long as two years. The artist, Ai Weiwei, son of one of Mao’s companions — and internationally known artist — was placed under house arrest, but continues to have international exhibitions. Perhaps artworks being unique, usually privately owned, are less threatening to authority, whereas writings can be widely disseminated.

Picasso said: “We artists are indestructible; even in a prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell.”

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 21st, 2017