A 60-year-old prison art competition has come under fire for their decision to strip artists’ names from their work for the 2024 prize.

Previously people submitting artworks to the Koestler Prize would be identified alongside their work by their first name and the name of the prison in which they are held. A change to the 2024 entry form says this will no longer be the case.

Koestler, who have been running the prize since 1962, were ordered to make this change by His Majesty’s Prison Service. The competition operates only with the agreement of HMPPS so ultimately had to comply with this new requirement.

The Chief Executive of Koestler, Fiona Curran, has confirmed that they made these changes to the competition as per HMPPS’s request, with this change coming into force just in time for the autumn 2023 exhibition.

Joelle Taylor, a poet and playwright, curated the 2023 Koestler exhibition at the Southbank Centre. She told Inside Time:  ‘I was disappointed to discover during the exhibition that the artworks had been surgically separated from the artists who created them… It is vital that the Service rethink and understand the transformative quality of seeing oneself as something other than the crime committed. The art belongs to the artist.’

Prisoners who have previously submitted work to the prize have criticised this decision, highlighting that out of 85,000 prisoners in the UK it would be difficult to identify any one person by just their first name.

A spokesperson from the prison service said: ‘We recognise the importance of rehabilitative courses such as art to help prisoners gain the skills they need, but all displayed artwork is anonymised to protect victims.’