The Circle Project

An evolving collaboration of artists and people with lived experience of incarceration dedicated to producing provocative art together.

What Fools These Mortals Be

An inventive retelling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream improvized and co-created as a series of tableau vivants (living pictures) by a dynamic group of women with lived experience.

The project is a collaboration between The Circle Project, Vancouver artist Adad Hannah and fourteen women bringing their gifts of imagination, resilience and boundless creativity.

The Dreaming

The Dreaming is an interactive audio documentary where women with lived experience share intimate memories of their dreams.

The dreams were recorded during the production of What Fools These Mortals Be.

Harlquino's Folly

Harlquino’s Folly evolved from a unique collaboration with a group of theatre artists incarcerated at William Head, a federal men’s correctional institution on Vancouver Island, located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples of the Songhees Nation and Xwsepsum Nation.

Time Freed

Time Freed (Beyond Capture) was developed through a series of workshops with 15 women with lived experience of incarceration. Under the inspired direction of Vancouver artist, Jin-me Yoon, the women designed their individual masks and costumes and worked on a land-based choreography to lend expression to their collective imaginations.

The Circle

The Circle is a creative documentation of a storytelling circle held in Vancouver with a group of women with lived experience. Some had just been released, some had been outside for several years, all had a story to tell.

Lockdown

Lockdown weaves zoom conversations with 6 formerly incarcerated women who offer advice on how to survive a lockdown. They put current government-imposed restrictions into perspective, and model how resilience, humour (and puppy love) can get us through this.