They have experienced the loneliness of prison, the time that weighs like a ton of bricks, the lack of contacts, perhaps also the lack of hope. With the collective Art Entr’Elles, accompanied by professional artists, these women opened up, took the perch that was extended to them to turn their experiences into stories, ready to be shared with the public.
The whole is presented in the sound exhibition Unconditionals, which takes place for three days at the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce cultural centre. While visiting the exhibition, we listen to seven stories, those of Marie-Lise L. Mélanie H. Mélanie G. Lyne T. Yuzi, Kali Chamanes and Sabz et Al. These stories may or may not be true, as presented by Kali Chamanes, one of the participants, who made a story out of it. The characters presented can also be real or not. The production of these works lasted two years, during which the women were accompanied by fifteen professional artists, including, more intensely, a screenwriter and a sound designer.
The life stories of these women vary enormously from one to another, the severity of their pain too. But in any case, it was long before the prison doors closed on them that their dramas began.
We work on the place of these women in society
However, in prison, there is no possibility of mourning, as noted by Kali Chamanes, who served an 18-month sentence in the federal institution for women in Joliette, followed by nine months at home. of transition Thérèse-Casgrain, the time to find accommodation. She will not tell us the reasons for this incarceration, but she comes away with the impression that prison as we currently experience it is traumatic and does not necessarily promote rehabilitation.
Moreover, she argues that “60% of imprisoned women are there for breach of condition”, and that their first offense is therefore far in their past. In the sound works presented, we also feel the wear and tear of women after years spent in prison.
In an interview, Kali Chamanes, who underwent two operations during his incarceration, also maintains that health care is provided there without ensuring the patient’s participation. She adds that the lack of physical contact with her family is cruel. In other testimonies, women also had to live with a distance from their family members.
Reduce to a statistic
“I have done everything in my life not to become a statistic,” said Kali Chamanes, adding that she was not preparing to go to prison. And the exhibition Unconditionalwith the work of the collective Art Entr’Elles, has given itself the specific mission of bringing incarcerated women out of invisibility.
“We are working on the place of these women in society, whether physical or digital,” says Anne-Céline Genevois, who accompanied them in the creative process. “Women are a minority in the prison environment, they represent barely 8% of the population. And they are not heard. […] Services are less. There are still needs. »
When Kali was at the Joliette institution, “all there were were book clubs. I did them in English and French. It must be said that COVID has shaken up everything we were doing, ”she said. Since her release, she has resumed her studies in commerce.
“Art in general is a therapy, specifies Kali Chamanes, who tried to make the most of the experience. That’s what humans did before there were therapists. »
Most of the women who participated in the project are now free.
“They are almost all out, there are only two left who are in a halfway house”, says, about the artists, Anne-Céline Genevois.
According to her, it is the conditions of poverty that often push women into prison. A poverty that leads to crimes of an economic nature. Even repeated shoplifting offenses can lead to incarceration, she points out. Addiction and substance abuse issues also result in sentences, often served in provincial institutions.
After its launch at the Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, the exhibition Unconditional will be released in digital format.