The Jessiefield Collection
6 July – 8 September 2024

Our building is open Thurs-Sun, 11am-4pm, or by appointment 
Work installed on our exterior can be viewed outside of our opening times
Entry is free – all are welcome
Wheelchair accessible

The image shows a black metallic circle mounted to a brick wall. An arm extends from one side of the circle, tipping a stream of water from a mug into a pair of cupped hands emerging from the opposite side.

Opening on Saturday 6 July, a project by Alice Myers and the Jessiefield Collective, a group of artists imprisoned at HMP Dumfries, which will be installed on the exterior walls of our building throughout the summer.  

The Jessiefield Collection is an imaginary museum that grew out of a year-long collaboration between Alice Myers and a group of people in prison at HMP Dumfries.

‘Jessiefield’ is the local name for the fields on which the prison was built in 1883. Beginning with discussions about existing photographs of the prison from the Historic Environment Scotland Archives, the group listed the things they felt were missing. What could or should be remembered about this place?  

The group used a range of photographic methods to respond to this question, from tracing the archival images, to tracing the institution itself by making rubbings on paper towels, to studio photographs documenting everyday gestures, and to installations of work in progress.

Circles often recurred and they began cropping the images using this shape, which contrasts with the institutional surroundings. The group installed their artwork in the prison Learning Centre, Visits Room and garden. Photographing these temporary displays transformed them, along with the surrounding fabric of the place, into permanent ‘exhibits’ in the museum, which can now travel outside the prison.  

 For CAMPLE LINE, the group have selected photographs of hand gestures they have documented – flying a paper aeroplane, pouring a cup of tea – and decided on their positioning: the images will be installed on the exterior walls of the building. 

‘These images blur the distinction between process and finished work, forming an incomplete record of a complex creative conversation. The result is a textured record of a place. It is also a collaborative meditation on what it is to record, to document and to co-create, and what it means to do so whilst imprisoned’ – Alice Myers 

The project focuses on traces and echoes of prisoners… We tried to capture the physical and emotional perspectives of being incarcerated… It is hoped that through this project, the prison can communicate with the audience, and allow a deeper understanding of the complex life inside. Additionally, it can act as a way to capture the present for future use. – SW

Featuring artwork by YB, AK, SW, PD, BMB, JP, SP, GD, WL, Anon, BM, NC, NT, KF, TA and Alice Myers. 

Alice Myers works with photography, moving image and sound and is currently pursuing a practice-based PhD at Glasgow School of Art, funded by the Carnegie Trust developing work in relation to incarceration and archives, building on Commonplace, a project that brought local archive imagery into HMP Dumfries as the basis for conversation and artwork