Unbound
See also: Community, Care Experienced and Vulnerable young people, Songwriting, participatory
Unbound is the ongoing creative community of Vox Liminis, who have diverse experience of the criminal justice system. Set up in the winter of 2014, Unbound began as a response to people who had been involved in Vox Liminis projects while in prison getting in touch after release.
The community is made up of former and serving prisoners (on home leave, or communicating via email-a-prisoner), people on community sentences, their families, artists, academics, and people who work in the criminal justice system.
Unbound’s normal pattern is to congregate on a Tuesday evening in Glasgow’s East End, eat a meal, and write songs together. Some of the community live further away, and join for occasional projects beyond the regular weekly routine.
In Tune
See also: Community, Care Experienced and Vulnerable young people, Songwriting, participatory
In Tune creates a space within prison where parents can be parents, and children can be children, despite the considerable disruption to family life. On any given In Tune session families will sing and play along to well-known songs, write their very own nursery rhymes or do some arts and crafts.
Vox Liminis try to get the balance right in each session, giving families the space to catch up, but also providing a range of different musical activities they can take ownership of and enjoy together.
The focus is on what they can make as a group, not where they find themselves.
Distant Voices
See also: Community, Care Experienced and Vulnerable young people, Songwriting, participatory
Distant Voices is a project that explores crime, punishment and reintegration through songwriting and other forms of creative expression. Vox Liminis pair some of Scotland’s best songwriters with people who’ve experienced the criminal justice system from lots of different angles. This has included people in prison, social workers, probation officers, prison officers and governors, as well as those affected by an experience of crime, or participants in communities and families who receive people coming home. Through the project, hundreds of songs have been written which tell vivid stories about the complexities of living through and coming home after punishment. Vox Liminis bring these stories to a wider audience through performing, recording and releasing the songs, recognising the power of music to connect us and to spark (sometimes complicated) conversations. Vox Liminis also try to capture the learning that comes out of this process of creating and sharing.