Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

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Cabecinhas, R. & Abadia, L. (eds.) (2013)Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approachesBraga: University of MinhoISBN: 978-989-8600-04-2pp. 298 -313Drawings and Narrative: the Inmates Memoryand Experience (At the Prison of Monsanto)Mariana CarroloUniversidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugalmarianacarrolo@gmail.comAbstractIn the first part of this communication we present the underlying questions of the researchheld in the Prison of Monsanto (PM), as well as its theoretical framework and the specificsituation regarding the context – the prison space – in an outside-in perspective. We aimto approach the relationship and social problematics inherent in a prison institution andin an exercise of power (Foucault, 1997), according to a point of view that regards thespace, the place and the supporting conditions of the experiences and life experiences ofthe inmate, specifically the inter-relationships between the space and the subjects, in aclosed environment.In the second part, which is directly related to the research, we aim to understand thespace perception and representation of the inmates, following the reverse view (insideout).Through this, we analyze the communication acts, which are a result of the directcontact with the inmates and the registration of the provided elements. Along with theserecords, we supply their drawings and work developed within the Creative Arts Studio(CAS). This research, as stated in the Arts of Making (Certeau, 1990), allows us to knowthe inmate’s point of view, his perception and his graphic and social representation of thespace – his experiences and life experience. There were twenty-one inmates taking partin this research, from 2007 to 2011.Lastly, through the idea of narrative images, it was suggested that the drawing would workas a body for the social narrative, as a communication strategy and as a revelation of theknowledge and counter-knowledge that takes place in a disciplinary institution.KeywordsInmates Drawings; Inmates Memory; Inmates Experience; Social NarrativeIntroductionThe Prison place congregates unpaired situations of limitation and depersonalizationof the identity and autonomy of the subject. If, as Foucault (2007, pp.141-142) affirms, thepower makes knowledge, part of that knowledge lays in those, who are docile and useful, thatare more submissive to it – the arrested individuals, Thus discipline produces subjected andpractised bodies, ‘docile bodies’ (Foucault, 1991, p.138).Will the basis of this research 1 - set of artistic work, drawings and paintings, developedby the inmates at the Prison of Monsanto, during the Creative Arts Studio (CAS) – become a1This research was supported by a grant from FCT.
Drawings and Narrative: the Inmates Memory and Experience (At the Prison of Monsanto)Mariana Carrolobody of knowledge, revealed through the revelation of the inmates’ spatial conditions andinterpersonal relationships, that conducts to a reflection upon the idea of narrative identity?What sort of records and memories are contained in this kind of work, as the witnessesof an unpaired experience; and what information, symbols and identity marks related to thesubject and the place can this show us?The underlying idea of this works, as an artistic witness – both as a product and aproducer of the individual and social knowledge of the place, derived from these speeches– is that it tells specific stories and has visualities and encrypted metaphors of a certainexperience and life-experience. This work has an individual and a collective dimension,shared and complex, fruit of the limiting prison action towards rights, freedom, behavioursand autonomy of the inmates – ritual social experiences, disciplinary and submitted to theexercise of power (Foucault, 2007). They are, therefore, based on a discourse that is eminentlyfocused on a personal perception of space and shape, and on the way it is represented bythe inmates, considering the conjecture and exercise of the microphysics of power (Foucault,2007) and the dialectics of knowledge production.This way, with this research, one aims to think about the perception of the space, of theshape and of the inmates’ life experiences, as well as their ability to represent a prison facilitywhere inmates live, as a complex phenomenon, common to different grounds; and wherethe Art is a way of mediation and an agent of the revelation: the interpretation and thinkingof all the work that was done. Within this context, one is forced to think about workingmethods that interdisciplinary intersect different knowledge, capable of finding a balancebetween History, Architecture, Space Psychology (among others) and the inmates’ narratives,their perception and memory as a re(construction) and representation of the space and theplace. And allowing oneself, from that experience, to understand the cultural, the social andthe historical factors associated with it, as well as the physical and psychological factorsthat, in real time, constitute not only the concept of place, but also the concept of inmatesand of social body.1. The SpaceThe concept of space and place, and their physical, social and identitarian characteristics,emerges as central during this research. The object of study, the Prison of Monsanto 2 ,the only high-security facility in Portugal, presents a radial plan and is destined solely tomale inmates in a special regime and in punishment - A prison with unique disciplinarycharacteristics and regulations. During its design, the architectural project (1878/1914) wasnot supposed to be used as a civil prison (1915). Nevertheless, as a military building, italready had some formal, proper, symbolic, material and architectonical characteristics ableto be adapted in order to shape it into the Civil Prison of Lisbon. As a building – a circularstronghold – it spontaneously follows part of the J. Bentham’s Panopticon guidelinesand model 3 (1748-1832), which aims: ‘(…) to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and2Former Sá da Bandeira Fortress, that belonged to the Trench Camp in Lisbon. The Civil Prison of Monsanto was created bythe Law of June 30th 1941. The Prison of Monsanto started its functions in 1915 (after the 1st World War), being upgradedto a high-security Prison since 2007.3For a functional description of the Panopticon, see Bentham, 2008 [1787], pp. 20 – 21. On the other hand Foucault understandingof the Panopticon is: ‘But the Panopticon must not be understood as a dream building: it is the diagram of aNarratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches299
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© CECS 2013 All rights reservedThi
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Cinematic Landscape and Social Memo
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comprises both remembering and forg
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include important questions related
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Part ICognitive and Emotional Proce
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Narratives and Social Memory from t
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The Lay Historian: How Ordinary Peo
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Cabecinhas, R. & Abadia, L. (eds.)
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Emotional Processes in Elaborating
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Transitional Justice Processes, Sha
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The Past and the Present (re)Visite
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Part IIMedia(ted) Narrativesand Pub
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Hard News Cognitive Shift: from Fac
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Narratives of Death: Journalism and
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Researching Identity Narratives in
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Journalistic Narrative: a Story of
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The Works of Sísifo: Memories and
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Audiovisual Post-colonial Narrative
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The Subject-Matter of Audiovisual H
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Part IVEthnic, National and Suprana
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Narratives of Redemption: Memory an
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Memory and the Flows of Identity in
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‘Diaspora Space’ as Heard and O
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Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

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