Young people at schools and youth organisations are to be encouraged to have a say in plans for a Women’s Building on the Holloway Prison redevelopment site by Community Plan for Holloway (CP4H).
The Make Space for Women competition is inviting young people to submit a story, poem or piece of artwork that explains or visualises why women need space in a Women’s Building.
Following the council agreeing for CP4H to run workshops on the competition in primary and secondary schools last week, the deadline for entries to the competition, which was officially set up at the end of January, has now been extended from 21 March until 18 April.
Holloway Prison was the largest women’s prison in western Europe until its closure in 2016. It was bought by Peabody housing association from the Ministry of Justice in March 2019.
Debbie Humphry, the Community Engagement Organiser for CP4H, said: “When the prison closed in 2016, one of the key demands right from the beginning was that there would be a women’s building on site, partly because it was public land, but largely because when the prison closed many women’s services were lost.
“The vision is that what is provided in the women’s building will help all women. It will stop some women going into prison, it will help women who come out of prison, it will help any women who need any kind of support.”
However, Humphry said CP4H does not feel that Peabody is offering enough space for the women’s building “to be able to provide the vision that everybody’s been fighting for since 2016”.
Peabody is currently offering around 1,200 square feet for the building, which is not much more than what they usually offer for a community centre on any big development, according to Humphry.
CP4H has worked out that the women’s building will need between 4,000-6,000 square feet. The competition Make Space for Women is intended to creatively show why women need space in the building.
Anyone at a school in the London boroughs of Islington and Camden, as well as young people aged 17-25 can enter a piece into the competition.
Humphry said that the competition is targeted at young people as they “are underrepresented in the campaign”.
With the women’s building not due to be finished for at least another five years, “young women need to tell us what’s needed in the future because this is a place for the future and it’s a place that should have longevity,” she said.
Organisations and individuals are invited to submit a poem, story, painting or illustration, video, photograph or collage to express what they feel a women’s building can offer to women and the community both now and in the future.
The competition will be judged by a diverse range of seven people and winners will be awarded prizes of £100.
Judges include 19-year-old local artist and campaigner Safi El Dardiry, Caitlin Davies, author of Bad Girls: The Rebels and Renegades of Holloway Prison, and Jessica Scott, a local artist and campaigner for Islington Homes for All.
Niki Gibbs, an artist and member of CP4H’s board of directors, will also judge the competition. She said that she will be “looking for imaginative ideas. What is city-living going to look like in 100 years time, when this building is still going to be there? So, make it something that’s really timeless, something that is still an icon in 100 years time.”
Gibbs, who has been involved in discussions about the project since its start, said everybody is invited to give ideas about how they want to use the building: “The woman’s building is going to have women-only spaces but […] there will be relationship counseling and all sorts of stuff like that, so it’s not excluding boys and I just want to get that across really strongly.
“We’re calling it a women’s building now, but it might not even have that name; it might end up being the Holloway building or something. The women’s building is for women, but it’s for everybody as well.”
Artwork has been used throughout the project to tell stories of the women of Holloway prison, as well as to provide ideas for the future of the site.
Banners displaying artwork from Islington Museum’s Echoes of Holloway Prison project and by artist Erika Flowers were put up on the hoardings at Holloway Prison site in mid-February.
“A picture can say 1000 words,” Gibbs said. “We’re doing like a wall of options. We’re going to put [everybody’s artwork] on Instagram, so if you do a doodle on the back of an envelope, send it in, inspire somebody else.”
All entries to the Make Space for Women competition will be put online. CP4H plans to hold an exhibition of the winning pieces either online or in a venue depending on Covid-19 restrictions.
