Event Details
- Location: Chester Cathedral
- Address: St Werburgh Street, Chester, Cheshire, CH1 2DY
- Start date: 11th October 2026
- End date: 25th October 2026
- Times: During visitor opening hours
- Entry fee: Entry by donation
A Staffordshire clergyman has created a powerful exhibition which highlights the moral injustices of a prison sentence that was banned in 2012 and PM Andy Burnham has vowed to finish for good. Yet over 2,000 people are currently in prison serving the controversial Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence, many languishing long after they have completed the recommended and reasonable tariff for their offence.
The exhibition – Seeing Life Wounded Souls – contains posters and poems and has been curated by former prison chaplain Revd Dr David Kirk Beedon from his doctoral research. Each poster displays the life story of one of the IPP men he interviewed using a unique life-history approach called Life as a Film, in which the men described their life story as if it were a film. The poems draw from 25 hours of raw interview transcripts to become moving poetic testimonies of their lived experience, all using their own words.
The exhibition will be at Chester Cathedral during Prisons Week (11th to 25th October) and David will be giving a talk on the exhibition after Evensong at 4pm on the 11th October. The exhibition will be at Leicester Cathedral for the month of March 2027, the full tour programme has not yet been finalised.
