Penitentiary institutions

The penitentiary institutions actively involved in the project activities were:

• the Palermo Pagliarelli – Antonio Lorusso – prison
• the Palermo Ucciardone – Calogero Di Bona – prison
• the Palermo Malaspina penal institute for minors
• the Florence Sollicciano prison

Workshops conducted by contemporary artists have been activated inside the prisons with the participation of inmates and doctoral students from international universities. These workshops were mainly held in conjunction with the intensive study weeks.
The collaboration between the Academic World and Penitentiary Institutes, inspired by the Graffiti of the Inquisition prisons in Steri, represented the experimentation of an interdisciplinary model aimed at promoting a new way of rethinking higher research at the service of socially disadvantaged people.
The researchers, artists, doctoral students, together with the inmates of the enitentiary institutions of Malaspina, Pagliarelli, Ucciardone in Palermo and Sollicciano in Florence, participated in a process from which emerges the value of a shared gesture, of creativity at the service of communication between apparently distant worlds, between human beings with different origins and experiences, who manage to establish a necessary relationship.
The project thus wanted to respond to the Erasmus+ priority of using the “Social and educational value of European cultural heritage” to “Build inclusive higher education systems”.