Holloway Booklet by Northumbria University

HOLLOWAY

It takes courage to speak out

We are courageous women just by sitting in this circle

HOLLOWAY

I am tropical rainforest, damp, clear skies, sunny, sunny.

I am humid, grey clouds, just finished raining, night, damp, mild, a rainbow, grey, sunny.

I am snow blizzard, rainforest rain, sunny with bursts of cloud, cloudy with showers of rain, sunny, raining and the clouds are clearing, winter morning frost, hot summers day, 35 degrees.

I am cloudy, a storm, grey, breezy, grey and cloudy, in Africa it’s just finished raining, humid and sunny, smell the rain.

I am winter, grey clouds, drizzle, autumn day, blizzard, rainbow, Breezy.

I am winter, night-time, cold damp winter, freezing, clouds, spring, whirlwind, spring, 5th November, fireworks, explosion, fireworks, lights, Release.

It’s sad our roots go deeper the plants are taking over

I knew it would be a bit derelict

it’s like the heart got ripped out than this building

It feels kind of healing to see

Holloway prison is falling nature is taking it back, slowly plants and trees starting to grow cracks in the walls a very beautiful metaphor these institutions don’t have to be here we don’t need to have prisons. these places that can feel so powerful they can crack and crumble and maybe we can pull them down forever apart

Disorientating

I can hardly remember I can hardly remember Like a

And

who would’ve thought you’d be in here smiling I can say what I want and do what I want this time It’s not my shame It does not belong to me

Haunted by people chewed up

like a ghost slipping through the system

I wanted to come and collect her the part of me that died here in Holloway

I wanted death when I prayed it was for God to take me

All the people who don’t have the privilege of speaking up who passed away inside these walls it’s quiet just you and your demons It will always be haunted people have died there are a lot of souls Not many of us make it

Letters to a younger self

A lot of professionals would ask me what’s wrong with me instead of what happened to me

The system is not equipped not interested in a therapeutic approach

I felt like I was destined for prison

what a brutal thing to happen

to someone trying to make the world a gentler place

Some of us don’t have time to process

being by myself, I’m at my best

There was a flicker of light in me

I’m learning Now

Dreams lived within me that didn’t allow my don’t have time to build ourselves

I was motivated by fear my whole life looking into the eyes of the other women here to be motivated by love

I was a child of the system I created different worlds for myself so that I could survive

Survival looks like nightmares to become a reality and being able to connect that wanted to burn brighter I was not created to be destructive

I will survive and fight this through I share with them an unconnected bond through being here night and day I will continue I have opened my heart I never forget how I watched my tears disappear through cracks that formed a river or tears with those who came before me

I will see these women in every wild flower who rose up through the cracks they were planted and who are as beautiful as any well-tended rose

I feel angry at myself, or maybe at other people I am not the only woman to have walked these routes in Holloway

I share experience strength and hope as I share my path

I share experience with the women who came before me but never had the chance to tvvlive rebuild and succeed they are not weeds they are wild and free

I share my pain sometimes, but only if we’re equal This space has made me think about all the people who have been through these gates

I will use my voice for the silenced I will walk with resilience untilI made it through the storm I stand in the footsteps of greatness I might despise, but I will not lose

I will try to speak a voice for all the women who have survived these gates and the ones who never made it I understand I can embrace my freedom

My story is not the first, society has to change in order for other women’s stories to change and be the last, otherwise we will continue to abuse women who have already been bruised by choices that they never had a chance in making

I share a space with women judged, condemned and discarded for daring to survive.