Catching Dreams

Catching Dreams is the Koestler Trust’s annual national showcase of arts by prisoners, offenders on community sentences, secure psychiatric patients and immigration detainees. It is produced by the Koestler Trust, the prison arts charity, and Southbank Centre.

For the first time, the exhibition has been curated by ex-offenders who’ve completed a year’s mentoring with the Koestler Trust’s specially trained and supported artists. Among the eight curators, is Shaun Attwood, author of the trilogy Prison Time, Party Time and Hard Time (Random House 2010, 2013, 2014). Each curator selected work from a record 8,789 entries to the 2014 Koestler Awards to create their own personal section of the exhibition. Many of these curators have had their own visual art or writing exhibited in previous Koestler Trust exhibitions.

Ex-offenders have also been specially recruited, trained and employed by the Koestler Trust as exhibition hosts. They will work alongside Southbank Centre staff to invigilate the exhibition and welcome visitors throughout the exhibition run.