The Holding Pen

Posted by Tanos on Mon 10 May 10, 10:11 PM

This weekend I've almost finished the Holding Pen at Bridgewood, which provides a secure holding space for captives, and is just over 3m by 3m in size. The walls are steel mesh panels, and it's all topped with barbed wire.

A major inspiration was seeing "This is Camp X-Ray" in 2003 - an art installation in Manchester that highlighted the holding of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay without trial and was itself constructed using steel mesh fencing panels. The carried out a week-long reconstruction of Camp X-Ray, as it was, with volunteers dressing as guards or prisoners. Planted in the middle of waste ground in Hulme that's surrounded by flats and traffic, it was quite eerie to go and see.