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Art at HMP Grendon – Ikon’s new artist in residence

Art at HMP Grendon – Ikon’s new artist in residence

Art at HMP Grendon – Ikon’s new artist in residence



Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery has announced Dean Kelland as its artist in residence for the next three years at HMP Grendon, Buckinghamshire.

Kelland is Ikon’s third artist’s residency at HMP Grendon, following Edmund Clark‘s residency from 2014 to 2019. Kelland will continue to support artistic practice for the prison community alongside developing his own work.

In consultation with the artist, prison residents will continue to make and submit work to the Koestler Awards as well as holding annual exhibitions at the prison. The residency runs alongside a public programme of research symposiums and events at Ikon, allowing a platform for public discourse on arts practice and criminal justice.

Kelland works across performance, photography and filmmaking. His practice touches on cultures of taste and histories of class in order to produce engaging observations on collective and mediated identities. Kelland has exhibited nationally and internationally with Ikon and undertaken residencies at New Art Gallery Walsall and the Birmingham & Midland Institute.

My ongoing interests in performance, gender representation and veils of masculinities are being rehearsed through the therapies at HMP Grendon, and I believe we can do something really exciting and positive.”
Dean Kelland, Artist

HMP Grendon operates a Democratic Therapeutic Community (DTC) to provide group based therapy within a social climate which promotes positive relationships, personal responsibility and social participation. HMP Grendon has recently appointed Rebecca Hayward as its first woman governor since it was founded in 1962.


Image courtesy of Ikon Gallery