Art & Abolitionist Futures - Leeds 2024

Trans man in a checkered sleeveless jumper with a black tshirt stands at the front of a room, in front of a projected flyer that says Arts & Abolitionists Futures Event Leeds. They are speaking.

A person with a brown haired bob and white tshirt is writing on a piece of paper. They are drawing a mind map, in the centre it says 2064... a world without prisons.

A group of people most are sat at tables and chairs looking at papers which cannot be seen on the tables, one person is stood up pointing across the table. They are engaging in a workshop. In the background the projector displays an image cropped fr

a black wall displaying around 20 different collages people have made throughout workshops on this project. Some say things like Radical Care Everyday, There are no natural deaths in prison, harm vs repair change comes one day at a time.

A group of people sat at tables and chairs in a room with black walls and ceiling. Facing the front where a man is speaking to the group in front of a projector screen with an Arts & Abolitionist Futures Leeds Event flyer displayed.

person with short brown hair wearing a denim jacket with back to the camera looking at the posters displayed on a black wall.

Two peoples arms reaching across pens, paper and post it notes. One person is drawing a tilling machine with red yellow and green crayon and another has written in curly writing Prepare the Land, Expand, Understand in green, red, yellow and blue.

photos: Fenia Kotsopoulou

ally, Dalton and Phoenix collectively created a project in collaboration with Abolitionist Futures fusing creative workshops and art, with abolition. Running workshops across Leeds on transformative justice, they used activities like collage making with editions of The Abolitionist (an abolitionist journal created in the 1980s that you can read our archived editions of here).

As part of this project Dalton collaborated with Bent Bars, a collective that he was in touch with during his own time in prison. You can read his blog post about this here.

We also put out a call out for five poster commissions, inspired by themes explored in The Abolitionist. We were overwhelmed by the amazing submissions we received and are excited to launch the final commissioned artworks below!

On 29th June 2024, we facilitated an Arts & Abolition event in Leeds, where the five posters were unveiled and people engaged in a day of creative workshops and abolitionist exchange.

Through this project, we hoped to build on a creative abolitionist tradition and stimulate more collaboration between art and the abolition movement in the UK and Ireland.

We invite you to enjoy and spread the word of abolition with these images of hope and imagination.

The project was seed funded by Sapling – an initiative from the University of Leeds Cultural Institute and the Leeds Arts & Humanities Research Institute.

The posters below are from artists that have shared their work under creative commons licence.
Creative commons licence: CC BY-NC-ND This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

blue/red lino print. a garden being watered, a group supporting someone climbing scaffolding. above a person reaches to red flames. text WE ARE EACH OTHER'S MAGNITUDE AND BOND WE ARE EACH OTHER'S BUSINESS WE ARE EACH OTHER'S HARVEST — Kyle @tryingtoslwwp We are each other's business
“We are each other’s harvest: we are each other’s business: we are each other’s magnitude and bond”. I love this line because I think it makes visible the beauty of collective care for abolitionist futures.'

felted art, maroon, red and yellow figures helping one figure who is knitting a long pink scroll with ACAB, strong roots, tight knit, we don't need police embroidered on. Plants held by some of the figures have roots that intertwine with the knitting — Pear @pearpiesyrup Strong roots, tight knit
'Too often "healing" is co-opted into something individual and apolitical when community care is necessary, as we already have everything we need to create an abolitionist future.'

cloudy sky, tarmac and drawn barbed fences. A rainbow with a flying smiling envelope, plant emerging from the concrete wrapped by a rainbow with a creature holding a pencil. WRITE LETTERS TO PEOPLE IN PRISON BREAK ISOLATION!! TILL ALL ARE FREE — Dudley @chekhovs_gunge Write letters to people in prison
'A digital image about envelopes flying over the fences, because letters stop the soul from a slow death in prison, and connection is vital.'

hands sprinkle seeds above phrase ABOLITION IS COMPOST. Hand drawn organisms encircle by text: DECOMPOSE CARCERAL CAPITALISM SOW SEEDS OF RADICAL COMPASSION GROW TRANSFORMATIVE LIBERATED FUTURES. QR code to scan. post is black and white. — Rosa @the_rosa_artist The Radical Abolitionist Compost Heap
‘What if compost could be a fertile common ground for growing abolitionist futures? Building on Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s work of ‘abolition as presence’ rather than absence and wriggling through our radical imaginations, you are invited to add to the collaborative abolitionist compost heap, sow radical seeds, grow liberated futures.'

blue sunbleached background with white line drawings of plants, watermelon and snail with tiny people climbing them. the roots extend below the soil where rocks and worms are. Text says WE ARE ALL SEEDS WATCH US GROW TOWARD FREEDOM — Leela @leela.keshav Sowing Resistance
'Seeds — as migratory beings that hold the promise of future life — teach us about emergence and transformation. In this poster, people emerge from soil like sprouting seeds, helping each other grow toward liberatory, abolitionist futures.'

Artist bios

Kyle Lee-Crossett is a printmaker and mixed media artist based in London who primarily organises with Bent Bars, an LGBTQ+ penpal project for prisoners in Britain and Northern Ireland. The print, “We are each other’s Business” was inspired by lines from Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem ‘Paul Robeson’ in memoriam of the singer and activist.

Pear Nuallak was dug out of the side of Shirley Hills in the late 20th century. They are an artist and writer currently based in all the bogs of London. After attempting to have an ‘art career’ and sneezing from the dust and neoliberalism, Pear discovered a hatred of boredom, exited the art studio, and took up a creative practice where they mess around with textiles and words. They enjoy causing mischief in places between the country and the city while playing with the relationship between the land and the body. Their first book, Pearls from their Mouth, was published in 2022 with Hajar Press.

Dudley Walsh Underclass artist and writer who co-foundered and is living at The Field, a semi-mythical DIY horizontal residency program for artists in their hometown- Ilkeston, Derbyshire. Was recently on a panel at Wysing Arts Center about art in the rural, plus DIY Art and underground conference at Nottingham University. Spoke at the exhibition RABBIT at Bury Museum Manchester. Pervious duo shows with Lisa Selby, Jake Kent, Leomi Sadler and Sam Hutchinson. First solo show at Screw Gallery Leeds 2021. They are alumni of School of The Damned 2017. Forthcoming projects include; poetry in Sissy Anarchy, speaking at Watery speculations conference of wet feminism at Greenwich University June 2024, working with Mayday Rooms, and Museums of Justice with Oscar Wilde’s prison door from Reading Gaol.

rosa is a nonbinary autistic illustrator, educator, and quiet activist based in Brighton. This poster explores the potential of compost and decomposition as a metaphor for growing abolitionist futures. The poster is an opening and invitation; by scanning the QR code viewers are invited to contribute to an online abolitionist compost heap. The QR code/ online compost heap will be an open source tool and gathering space for radically imagining, dismantling and world-building beyond carceral capitalist logics.

Leela Keshav (she/her) is an artist and writer completing graduate studies at the Architectural Association in London, where her current work examines plant-human relationships and imagines reparative futures. She was the writer-in-residence at Hauser & Wirth Somerset in May 2024, and her writing and illustrations have been featured in ROOM Magazine, London Festival of Architecture, The Architectural Review, and Chutney Magazine, among others.

Art & Abolitionist Futures - Leeds 2024

Artist bios

Trans connections: pockets of hope through collective organising