“Inconditionnelles”: An Artwork of the Art Entr’Elles Collective: Co-Creation as a Space for Meeting, Learning, and Transformation

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Special Issue 2025 of Apprendre + Agir

Marie Michèle Grenon
Anne-Céline Genevois

Abstract

This article presents the creative process behind the sound work Inconditionnelles produced in 2022–2023 by Art Entr’Elles, a non-profit collective of artists who say NO to violence, intolerance and poverty. Operating in a women’s halfway house in Montreal, with the support of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Québec (SEFQ), Art Entr’Elles mobilized community art as a tool for individual and collective change, and to facilitate the reintegration of women who experienced and survived incarceration. Community art is a creative and group reflection process aimed at co-creating a collaborative artistic work through the intersecting viewpoints of women with experience of the criminal justice system, professional artists, the collective’s coordinator, as well as the researcher. The article explores the work’s co-creation process, which proved itself as an environment for meeting, learning and transformation. The article shows that the artistic workshops of the Art Entr’Elles Collective can enable women who have experienced the criminal justice system to reconnect with the pleasure of learning at a crucial stage in their social reintegration. For the professionals involved, their participation in the project contributed to modifying their ways of working.

Long summary

This article presents the creative process behind the sound work Inconditionnelles produced in 2022–2023 by Art Entr’Elles, a non-profit collective of artists who say NO to violence, intolerance and poverty. Operating in a women’s halfway house in Montreal, with the support of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Québec (SEFQ), Art Entr’Elles was founded by the concerned people to answer their need to be recognized and heard in society.

The Art Entr’Elles Collective uses community art as a tool for individual and collective change and to facilitate the social reintegration of women who have experienced incarceration. Community art is a creative, collective reflection process aimed at co-creating a collaborative work through the intersecting viewpoints of all the participants – the concerned women, professional artists, the coordinator of the collective, and the researcher. The goal of the Inconditionnelles project was to enable woman with experience of the criminal justice system (called “community artists” in the Art Entr’Elles Collective) to create a sound self-portrait or a short story on a theme of their choice, which would then be assembled and produced as a collective work. The final product consists of an in situ installation and a web platform. The sound work aims to project the voices of women with experience of the criminal justice system into the public space, where their voices remain marginalized.

This article delves into the main stages of the process of co-creating the sound work Inconditionnelles, namely the creative process, the construction of the collaborative work, as well as its launch and public presentation. Based on the experiences of people involved in the project, as well as the observations, analyses and discussions of all team members, it was found that the co-creation process is a space to meet, learn and change. These aspects are informed by the social practice theory of anthropologist Jean Lave. As will be shown, meetings are at the heart of co-creation, and are the driving force behind the entire process. We will discuss the range of learning achieved during the creation of Inconditionnelles. This includes familiarization with women’s experiences with the justice system, how and what participants learned about themselves, and the adoption of new personal or professional practices. In the context of this project, “transformation” takes on personal meaning as will be shown by comments of the people who took part in the co-creation process. The members of the creative team believe that involvement in a project such as Inconditionnelles contributes to personal and professional changes, as well as new openness to others. In line with the UNESCO principles of prison education and lifelong learning, this article shows that the artistic activities of the Art Entr’Elles Collective can be an opportunity for women with experience of the criminal justice system to reconnect with the pleasure of learning at a pivotal stage in their social reintegration process. For the professionals involved, their participation in the project has led to a transformation of their ways of working.

Keywords: community Art, co-creation, Art Entr’Elles Collective, women with experience of the criminal justice system

Introduction

According to the Politique gouvernementale d’éducation des adultes et de formation continue (Government of Québec, 2002), it is recognized that education takes place throughout life and in different contexts, rather than only during childhood and years of schooling. The Politique identifies learning as a factor that contributes to the full development of adults on a personal, professional, and social level. For UNESCO, education remains the most productive activity to be carried out in prison, and it reconciles prisoners with the act and pleasure of learning (De Maeyer, 2019). Learning activities are also relevant to social reintegration in halfway houses, although this subject has received less scholarly attention (Grenon and Thériault, 2024). In this article, we are interested in a community art project of the Art Entr’Elles Collective, which took place in a women’s halfway house in Montreal, with the support of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Québec (SEFQ).

As a non-profit arts organization, the Art Entr’Elles Collective was founded by people concerned with the experience of incarceration, and answers their need to be recognized and heard in society. The Art Entr’Elles collective puts community art at the heart of its artistic approach, and uses it as a tool for individual and collective change, to contribute to the social reintegration of women who have experienced (and survived) incarceration. Community art is a collaborative creative method involving women having experienced the criminal justice system (referred to as “community artists” in the Art Entr’Elles Collective) and professional artists. Together, the members of the group undertook a creative and reflective process aimed at co-creating a collaborative work. Unlike other artistic practices, community art has an activist or political dimension, since the themes of the initiative are directly related to the concerns of the community members who participate in it (Leduc, 2012). The Art Entr’Elles Collective adheres to the principles of cultural democracy and thus, recognizes and values the voices and experiences of women who have experienced incarceration. The co-creation approach is intended to be democratic and not hierarchical, so that the resulting work reflects the points of view, knowledge, and experiences of all the people involved. For the Art Entr’Elles Collective, each person involved in a project, whether professional or not, brings his or her knowledge and collaborates with others on an equal basis, according to a principle of mutual enrichment. The collective envisions collaboration in the following way: “like a box, community artists bring the content and professional artists bring the container and then, together, they reorganize everything” (Art Entr’Elles, 2022).

For professional artists, the community art projects of the Art Entr’Elles Collective differ from other artistic practices, as they are asked to leave a lot of space for community artists during the co-creation process, while ensuring the artistic quality of the final work. Art Entr’Elles’s artistic productions aim to be exhibited in professional venues (e.g., museums or cultural centres). Like professional artists, community artists involved in an Art Entr’Elles project are paid for their work. Consequently, they must provide sustained participation throughout the artistic process, which extends over several months. The realization of this project in a halfway house, where the community artists resided and had access to psychosocial support, contributed to their perseverance in a process that allowed them to experience success. Unlike other programs or workshops offered to women having experienced the criminal justice system, Art Entr’Elles’ activities are a rare artistic project that provides an actual work experience for future employment purposes. According to the observations of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Québec (SEFQ), participation in Art Entr’Elles activities promotes the development of skills, such as confidence in oneself and in others, and contributes to socialization and social recognition after a period of incarceration.

Since its foundation in 2009, the Art Entr’Elles Collective has seen the creation of nine community art projects; the most recent, Inconditionnelles, was carried out between April 2022 and April 2023. This sound creation project was undertaken by a team of seven community artists, two professional artists (a scenographer and a sound designer), the coordinator of the collective (affiliated with the SEFQ), and a researcher. Its goal was for each community artist to create either a sound self-portrait or a short story on a theme of their choice, which would then be assembled and produced in the form of a collective work. The final product was deployed in two formats: a gallery installation and an online platform. The collective sound work aimed to make the stories of women having experienced the criminal justice system heard in the public space, where their voices remain marginalized.

In this article, we will explore the creative process of the Inconditionnelles project, which proved to be a space of meeting, learning, and transformation for community artists and other members of the creative team. We will begin by presenting the main stages of the project’s creative process, then explain how the three themes of the work were selected and illustrated. We will then detail each of the aspects that characterize the co-creation process (meeting, learning, and transformation), by intersecting the viewpoints of a community artist, a professional artist, the coordinator of the collective, and the researcher who followed the development of the project.

The Creative Process of the Collaborative Work “Inconditionnelles“

The Inconditionnelles project was undertaken by seven women, aged from 30 to 65, who had different experiences with the criminal justice system. Four women have served a federal prison sentence (two years or more). The other three were incarcerated in a provincial institution (less than two years). Five of the women had a secondary school education (completed or not) at the time of the project, while the other two had attended university. The group included two racialized women and two women with Indigenous origins. Four of them had children. One woman had previously participated in a project of the Art Entr’Elles collective, while it was a first experience for the other six. All of them agreed to participate voluntarily, following a call for participants by the collective’s coordinator. When the project began, five women were residing in the halfway house. The other two had completed their stay and were living outside the house and went to the house each week to participate in the workshops.

The co-creation process took place in three phases starting in April 2022 and concluding a year later, in April 2023, with the public presentation of Inconditionnelles. At the first meeting, the coordinator distributed a “member’s notebook” to each participant. She explained the approach of the community art project and the role of the team members. Community artists are central to the process: they are the main authors of the collective work. They also act as artistic co-directors and make the final artistic decisions. The coordinator and the professional artists accompany the community artists in the creative process and are acknowledged as co-authors of the collective work. The coordinator works to ensure that the principles of the collective’s artistic approach and the participants’ well-being are respected. She supports community artists in their artistic decision-making and mediates between community and professional artists.

The first phase, from April to June 2022, was dedicated to the creative process. It consisted of twenty research-creation workshops, each lasting three hours, twice a week. The workshops introduced the participants to different artistic practices, works and techniques, to create a shared artistic culture within the group. They also provided a context for experimenting with different artistic media, so that community artists could gradually develop their own personal narrative. The research-creation workshops were led by the two main professional artists, the collective’s coordinator, as well as five collaborating professional artists specialized in storytelling: a poet, a sound artist, a film director, a screenwriter and a storyteller. Each professional artist led two workshops to introduce the participants to their artistic practice. From week to week, the community artists experienced an immersive sound work, listened to different styles of podcasts, demystified the work of a sound effects specialist in cinema, recorded ambient sounds, wrote a variety of texts, recorded and listened to their own voices, and so on. In addition, there were working sessions devoted to writing personal narratives that were periodically presented to the group. Sharing their works in progress allowed team members to discuss, offer constructive criticism and make suggestions to help each community artist to enrich their personal narrative. At the end of June, a week of intensive work, organized as an artistic residency at the Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, was devoted to finalizing a first draft of the personal stories. Each community artist presented their story to the group and recorded it before the summer break.

The second phase, from mid-August to mid-November 2022, developed the collaborative artwork. Eleven additional workshops were organized to finalize the individual stories, prepared the studio recordings and reflected on the scenography of the collaborative sound work. During these sessions, the community artists finished writing their story on a personal topic (motherhood, their personal trajectory) or related a personal event, connected or not to their incarceration. The women determined the sounds and atmosphere of their story, to guide the sound designers who did the editing and sound design. A professional actress supported the community artists in the preparation and interpretation of their story in a professional studio. The community artists went on to a listening session with the sound designer to choose among the different takes and clarify their instructions for editing their individual work.

At the same time, the group members discussed the structure of the collective work, bringing together the seven personal stories. During these meetings, the scenographer noted interests, gathered ideas and suggested options to community artists who discussed them collectively. The discussions helped to clarify the group’s wishes and guided the design team during the in situ installation and building the web platform. Some of the choices made by the community artists led to changes from what had initially been planned by the professional artistic team. For example, when the project was sketched out, the web platform took precedence over the installation. During the group work sessions, some women indicated that they did not want their full story available on the Internet. They wanted to keep control of their words and their stories. They also wanted audience members to occupy a space where they could properly hear their work. This choice excluded the possibility of outdoor broadcasting. The professional artistic team respected these decisions, and gradually, the community artists heard their story edited into sound works. They were able to ask the sound designer for changes or adjustments until they were fully satisfied.

The third phase marked the launch and public presentation of the collaborative sound work Inconditionnelles, which took place at the Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal, from April 13 to 16, 2023. The in situ installation was organized in the shape of a central foyer, where audience members could spread out, sit down and listen to the stories of the community artists, presented in sequence, in a loop. The women’s voices emerged from the foyer, while the sounds emanating from speakers around the room created a distinctive atmosphere for each story.

The professional team worked on the web component of the project until the fall of 2023, based on the guidelines determined by the group during the co-creation process and by organizing individual follow-ups with each community artist. A few months after the first exhibition of the sound installation, the web platform was inaugurated.1 In this part of the work, the public is invited into the world of each community artist and listen to their personal story, in parts or as a whole. The web platform also announces the next exhibition dates of the in situ installation, and includes the manifesto of the Art Entr’Elles Collective.

The “Inconditionnelles” Project as a Space for Meeting, Learning and Transformation 

The primary goal of the Inconditionnelles project was to create a collaborative sound work, based on seven personal stories developed by the community artists, for public broadcast. However, for all the team members, the ramifications of their participation in the co-creation process for nearly a year went far beyond the work itself. During a recent meeting to prepare this article, Anne-Céline, the coordinator, and Marie Michèle, the researcher, retraced and discussed the Inconditionnelles co-creation process. As coordinator of the collective since 2015 and assistant executive director at the Elizabeth Fry Society of Québec, Anne-Céline develops and maintains relationships with the team members, which gives her a unique perspective to see the benefits of the project. Marie Michèle did her postdoctoral research2 on the Inconditionnelles project. She conducted participant observations throughout the work’s development, in addition to conducting research interviews with most of the team members to learn about their experience, their learning and the ramifications of their participation in the project.

Based on their experience, observations, analyses and discussions with the team members, Anne-Céline and Marie Michèle concluded that the co-creation process had been a space for all team members to meet, learn and change. To conceptualize their findings, they mobilized anthropologist Jean Lave’s thought on social participation (2019). For Lave, learning is a social and situated process that is rooted in interaction and participation. In her work with young adult learners in a “production school” in Denmark, Lave showed that by participating in non-formal learning activities, a category in which we can include Art Entr’Elles’ art workshops, a process of change occurs that simultaneously affects the participant, their participation in the activities as well as their daily practices. This is a relevant theoretical framework for analyzing the changes experienced by team members, the types of learning they achieved and the ramifications of their participation in the Inconditionnelles project.

Finally, to further explore the results and ideas presented in this article, Anne-Céline reached out to Marie-Lise, one of the community artists, and Hubert, a professional artist, two years after the project came to an end. Anne-Céline wanted to get their points of view on the co-creation process as a space for meeting, learning and changing. In a discussion in the form of an informal semi-structured interview, Anne-Céline asked the following questions, to which she and Marie Michèle also answered:

  1. Can you summarize your experience in the Inconditionnelles project in a few words?
  2. What did you learn throughout this adventure?
  3. What was the moment you liked most?
  4. What did this experience bring you?
  5. Did this experience change anything for you?
  6. Would you like to do an Art Entr’Elles project again? If so, why?

The answers were then analyzed and classified according to the three themes of meeting, learning and changing. In the following sections, we will discuss the results, to better understand the co-creation process.

The Co-creation Process as a Meeting Space

In the community art projects of the Art Entr’Elles Collective, meeting is at the core of the co-creation process. The Inconditionnelles project brought together people who rarely meet otherwise, while the artistic activities enabled them to build relationships with others in the group. For the collective’s coordinator, follow-up meetings are a useful tool to ensure the well-being of the team members and the smooth running of this collective project.

The Inconditionnelles artistic process involved the participation of professionals and women who have experienced incarceration, two groups that have few opportunities to interact in other contexts. In the Art Entr’Elles project, professional and community artists were led to work closely, within the democratic and non-hierarchical principles inherent in the artistic process. According to the project’s aims, the co-creation work should result in a quality work, worthy of exhibition in a recognized artistic venue. As one community artist remarked, there are very few spaces in society where members of a group participate equally in a process where each person can express themselves without judgment.

For Hubert, one of the professional artists, the project allowed him to “meet a wide variety of people. I encountered two worlds – women who had lived through prison, and a very feminine environment. I felt welcomed and accepted. Not judged, not dominated.” In the same vein, while several women in the group had experienced gendered forms of violence (physical, economic, systemic, etc.), several community artists mentioned appreciating that the two main artists involved throughout the project were open, sensitive and respectful men. The women underscored that they felt listened to and considered by the professional artists, who placed their knowledge and artistic experience in support of the collective approach.

During the workshops, all team members participated in the proposed activities and exercises, which led to a sharing of personal experiences, feelings and thoughts with the entire group. The poetry activity, for example, led each person to talk about themselves and elaborate on their state of mind. Marie-Lise, a community artist, found there was “solidarity and honesty” in the group: “We had a lot of discussions that led to really important things, and things that were sincere and honest”. The community artists spoke about events related to their incarceration and the situations they face as women with experience of the criminal justice system, including prejudices and the obstacles they encountered when returning to the community (housing market, insurance, job market, etc.). Throughout the process, Marie-Lise felt “listened to by everyone,” which is especially important since the women with experience of the criminal justice system mentioned that they are rarely believed in the prison system or heard in society.

The heart-to-heart exchanges that took place, sometimes on intimate subjects and experiences, helped to forge links among the members of the group. The co-creation process gave rise to an authentic meeting among participants.

In this community art project, meeting also became the driving force behind the co-creation process, which requires all team members to come on board at different levels. It was an unusual experience for most of the people involved in such a project for the first time. As Marie Michèle, researcher, points out:

I never had the opportunity to participate in a project like this, in being asked to integrate with the group and collaborate with professional and community artists. When I discussed my research project with Anne-Céline, it was very clear that I could not have conducted observations from a distance. I had to introduce myself to the group and become part of it, and fortunately, my presence was accepted.

Anne-Céline, says that in each project she coordinates for the collective Art Entr’Elles:

At the first meeting, I always have stage fright. I have little butterflies in my stomach. I always have a slight apprehension; I hope the women will like me, that we will manage to get to know each other. Meeting when you don’t know each other takes time and it’s always a bit delicate. We all have our fears and prejudices.

According to her, art facilitates meeting:

Artistic practice is a great way to get to know each other. Marie-Lise told me during our interview for this article that at Art Entr’Elles, she was really herself. It made me realize that for me as well, at Art Entr’Elles, I am truly myself. Art enables meeting and allows us to quickly enter the intimate sphere; the masks fall, we confide in each other, we give our opinions, we exchange, we reveal ourselves and we really get to know each other.

The role of the coordinator is also to create conditions that are conducive to such connections (safe space, respect between members, no violent behaviour, etc.) and to ensure the well-being of each person. Throughout the project, Anne-Céline organized individual meetings that enabled participants to stay in tune with the collective’s principles, to vent, to address concerns and ensure that the community artists were not caught in situations where they might fail. It was understood that the project required a great commitment from the community artists to address intimate moments of their lives, some of which might have been traumatizing. Through these individual meetings, the coordinator played a mediating role to foster a fruitful collaboration among participants. In carrying out these duties, the project coordinator could call on the support of members of the collective’s board of directors and the SEFQ clinical team.

As discussions progressed and the workshops led to decisions, the project took shape and its road became clearer. For Hubert, the moments of meeting and connection among group members were the aspect he appreciated most:

The moment when we are cooking ideas and something will come out of our connected brains. I don’t know where to put it, but it took place. It became clear. And there is this moment for each of the women when they have produced their personal project… like little bubbles of satisfaction.

The meeting space also fosters the realization of a project that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Hubert points out: “I felt the enormous satisfaction of the power of a collective. The power to achieve things that I cannot dream of, alone.”

In this dimension of learning, the Inconditionnelles project succeeded in fashioning a meeting space for participants who learned to know each other and bond together by way of the co-creation process.

The “Inconditionnelles” Project as a Vector of Learning

The process of creating Inconditionnelles also allowed group members to learn about the realities experienced by women with experience of the criminal justice system, about themselves, and about developing new personal and professional practices.

For Hubert and Marie Michèle, participation in the project was an opportunity to become aware of the realities of women who have experienced incarceration. By getting to know the community artists over several weeks in a context of co-creation, the professional artist and the researcher learned, as Hubert put it, “not to trust appearances” and to develop “a sense of belonging to a group that fights against forms of oppression.” Marie Michèle says she learned a lot from observing community artists: “They inspired me to trust myself more, to dare to take on new projects and to experiment with things that can be intimidating at first.” For Marie-Lise, a community artist, participating in the Inconditionnelles project taught her a lot about herself: “[I learned] not to be judgmental and not to be afraid of others. To say what I have to say.” Since the creative process required a lot of work from the community artists, including developing a personal narrative about a personal topic, it sometimes made women feel insecure and emotional. Nevertheless, they rose to the challenge. In retrospect, Marie-Lise experienced a gain in self-assurance, “because before, I didn’t have confidence in myself.”

The art workshops allowed community artists, as well as other team members, to learn about art, while experimenting with new activities, such as poetry, sound creation or interpretation. Marie-Lise continues certain practices she learned during the Art Entr’Elles project.

I still write. I write poems. I write one for myself and then I tear it up because I want to improve myself in life. I don’t keep it, because it seems that it doesn’t bring luck. Then I destroy it, I put it in the garbage and it’s forgotten. After that, I move on.

For Anne-Céline and Hubert, participating in the co-creation process allowed them to learn things that could be relevant professionally. As an artist, Hubert is used to working alone and independently, but he notes that co-creation makes certain processes easier and promotes the well-being of all group members. “I learned to prioritize the place of creation as such, over relational issues. The link [among group members] is the priority! It’s compatible to respect this link, to maintain it, without lowering artistic standards.” 

For Hubert, in the process of being in contact with community artists and accompanying them to develop their stories, “I learned a form of listening, to listen to my instinct to trust people.” His participation in the Inconditionnelles project has had ramifications for his artistic practice: “I want to explore the methodology we put in place [at Art Entr’Elles] on a personal level. I’m developing a project with sound and voices to give space to the words, to have this poetic documentary side.” Anne-Céline explains that her experience with the collective and her discovery of the community art method completely changed her way of working: “Involving the people concerned by the subject of the work at the very heart of the creative process changes everything! It reveals the importance of considering people’s life experiences, of not speaking in their stead, of accepting not knowing.” She adds that the specific aspects of the community art method have allowed her to learn to:

[…] Take the time to meet the other, to listen, to make decisions collectively, to distill my thoughts, to de-centre my point of view, to become aware of my blind spots. I was fortunate to experience, in my body, the power of the collective and that of actions by and for [the concerned people].

In this learning dimension, the co-creation process was the setting for team members to learn more about others, about themselves, and to try out new practices and working methods.

Get Involved and Transform Through a Process of Artistic Co-creation 

Anne-Céline notes that a community artist once told her that her participation in an Art Entr’Elles project had “changed everything” for her, in that the ramifications had appeared in all spheres of her life (housing, employment, interpersonal relationships, etc.). While we readily see changes in the people who participate in a project of the Art Entr’Elles Collective, the idea itself of transformation requires greater thought. Basing ourselves on Jean Lave’s work and thought on social participation (2019), we asked project members to describe the changes that occurred because of their participation in the Inconditionnelles project.

As Lave (2019) shows, by participating in non-formal learning activities, such as an Art Entr’Elles project, a process of change occurs that simultaneously affects the participant, their participation in the activities, as well as their daily practices. Marie-Lise provides an example in speaking of her experience in the Inconditionnelles project. At first, her participation was hesitant: “Because before I was all… unable to speak, to express my emotions, I thought I wasn’t good [at anything], because I had done several days in incarceration. I thought I had lost my intelligence.” Over the course of the workshops and as she accomplished different artistic activities, her self-confidence developed, which encouraged her to participate in exchanges and group discussions:

With these people, I had less trouble talking, I felt less insecure… I was more myself! […] yeah, because we don’t judge ourselves and we trust each other and we are honest with ourselves and each other […] It has changed my trust in others [because] I didn’t trust anyone before. I felt that we weren’t being judged.

As described in the previous section, Marie-Lise has changed her daily practices, for example, by including writing and poetry in her activities.

If we follow the thought of Lave (2019), the Art Entr’Elle process also brought transformation to a participant like Hubert. As a professional artist, Hubert believes he developed complicity with all the participants and considers that the co-creation process has helped to make him “more joyful, more sincere with myself.” He too sees the experience as part of a

[…] process of change. Working with women helps me see my place differently. It’s not only that experience, but it’s part of my change: being the father of a daughter, a woman’s partner, it’s an ongoing process … understanding the oppression experienced by women.

Similarly, Marie Michèle “learned a lot through the contact with these women and the group. I was led to create with different people, which was new for me.” At the end of the Inconditionnelles project, her participation was an opportunity

[…] to reflect on my role and my practice as a researcher. Working every week with the Art Entr’Elles team in a more active role than I had originally planned, and learning about artistic practices, made me want to use participatory and artistic methods such as collage, comics or zine, to share my research results in an accessible way. My experience with the collective has made me aware of the relevance of sharing scholarly knowledge with a broader public, to inform and work to dismantle prejudices.

Her research process with the Art Entr’Elles Collective helped to transform Marie Michèle as a participant, while leading her to adopt new scholarly practices. Even though she has been working with the collective for ten years, Anne-Céline believes that the experience of Art Entr’Elles propelled her into a process of continuous change:

It has profoundly transformed who I am, it has gone straight to the heart! I feel humbled to meet these women, who trust me and who entrust me with their stories. They have taught me to look differently and to listen differently. With each project, I feel I’m becoming a better person, more intelligent, more patient, a better listener, more aware, more committed, more human… It’s as if the group enhances all the qualities of human beings!

Lastly, the team members consider that involvement in an Art Entr’Elles community art project leads the participants to introspection and transformation. Again, we turn to Marie-Lise: “all those who are not able to change, they could do Art Entr’Elles and they would change their behaviour and attitude, their professionalism, be honest with themselves and trust people.” Participation in the co-creation process promotes dialogue, solidarity, open-mindedness and mutual aid, in Hubert’s words:

This project proves that, together, it is easier to stay alive. All the models that are offered to us, where we should only think about ourselves […], I’m no longer interested in listening to that. We clearly have a rise in ideas that are normative, that tend to deny differences between people, and the freedom of people to have different life trajectories… We hear a lot about it rising […]. I am elsewhere, I’m with people who do things differently. It is participation in the world that is different, that is committed, that is concerned, responsible, respectful… […].

Conclusion

When listening to the artwork Inconditionnelles, the audience is invited to foray into the worlds of community artists, to listen to their words and to let themselves be transported by their stories. However, it is difficult for the audience to conceive the richness of the creative process that led to the collective work. In this article, we have sought to lift the lid on the co-creation process of the Inconditionnelles project and analyze it as a space of meeting, learning and transformation for the team members who were involved. In examining each of these dimensions, we were guided by Jean Lave’s theory of social practice (2019), as well as the perspectives of a community artist, a professional artist, the coordinator of the collective, and a researcher who followed the progress of the project. Although the project is intended for women who have experienced incarceration, we chose to compare the points of view of different participants to show the extent of its repercussions. We have seen that meeting is at once the foundation and the driving force behind the Art Entr’Elles project. We discussed different types of learning achieved by the team members throughout the process, such as familiarizing themselves with the experiences of women with experience of the criminal justice system, learning about themselves or adopting new daily practices. All the participants in the co-creation process felt that this process had brought transformations to them.

The projects of the Art Entr’Elles collective come at a crucial moment in the lives of these women who are engaged in a process of transition towards social reintegration. The project seeks to help people (re)build social ties after a period of incarceration and (re)engage collectively, as did the members of the Inconditionnelles team in writing a manifesto.3 Art Entr’Elles’s projects allow participants to experience the power of art, which, as illustrated by director Hugo Latulippe (2020: 30-31), has a transformative capacity in our lives:

Art is a way of putting ourselves back into play.
Art forces us to reposition ourselves (in our chair or in the world).
Art is an Antigone that contests things inside us […].
Art allows access to the Other, to all the Others.
And like a boomerang, art inevitably comes back as an exponential construction of Self. […].

References

Notes

  1. https://inconditionnelles.com/ ↩︎
  2. This research was funded by the Postdoctoral Fellowships program of the Fonds de recherche
    du Québec—Société et culture (number 2022-B3Z-300964).     ↩︎
  3. Available online on the https://inconditionnelles.com platform. ↩︎

Authors

Marie Michèle Grenon
Postdoctoral researcher
Department of Special Education and Training
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
grenon.marie_michele@courrier.uqam.ca

Anne-Céline Genevois
Deputy Executive Director
The Elizabeth Fry Society of Quebec
Coordinator of the Art Entr’Elles Collective
annecelinegenevois@elizabethfry.qc.ca

Cite this article

Grenon, M. M. et Genevois, A.-C. (2025). “Inconditionnelles”: An Artwork of the Art Entr’Elles Collective: Co-Creation as a Space for Meeting, Learning, and Transformation”. Apprendre + Agir, special issue 2025, Learning and Transforming: International Practices and Perspectives on Prison Education. https://icea-apprendreagir.ca/inconditionnelles-an-artwork-of-the-art-entrelles-collective-co-creation-as-a-space-for-meeting-learning-and-transformation/

Leave a Reply

Votre adresse e-mail ne sera pas publiée. Les champs obligatoires sont indiqués avec *

Ce site utilise Akismet pour réduire les indésirables. En savoir plus sur la façon dont les données de vos commentaires sont traitées.