Interview

France: Concertina, coming together to explore imprisonment

It’s a date! Prison and detention watchers will meet this summer.

Concertina’s goal is to convene people from various backgrounds and disciplines, all motivated by detention and incarceration. The first edition of these summer Gatherings is scheduled for next July 9th to 11th, in Dieulefit in Provence’s Drôme department. Bernard Bolze, Prison Insider’s founder and an activist around issues of incarceration, is spearheading the event, imagined as a lively annual occasion. In three answers, he gave us the broad strokes.

In fact, since becoming involved in these issues, I’ve always tried to suggest a hybrid approach that ties a message that speaks to the head to one that speaks to the heart.

The history of barbed wire, this “ingenious agricultural tool” invented as the American West was conquered to pen in bison and eliminate Native Americans.

With Concertina, our dream is to create a permanent space for people motivated by the important question of imprisonment, and bring them together for a brief period every year.

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Concertina

Coming together to explore imprisonment

Concertina’s three-day summer Gathering will explore the issues around imprisonment (prison, administrative detention, police custody, forced psychiatric hospitalisation…). The figure of barbed wire, symbolic or real, will be the theme of the 2021 edition

  • Find the 2021 programme here
  • Visit Concertina’s website (online registration for workshops)