For the residents of Reading the prison is a giant mysterious structure, going about our lives we have walked past the cliff like walls of Reading Prison sometimes daily. The grade II listed building formerly known as Reading Gaol closed in 2013. There have been calls to retain the building as a tourist attraction, in 2014 it was proposed that the building be converted into a theatre. In 2015 it was announced that the building be sold to housing developers. This year it is the venue for the Reading 2016 Year of Culture programme.

I was kindly invited to the private viewing of the art exhibition at HM Reading Prison by James Lingwood, co-director at ArtAngel. I was thrilled to finally be able to see inside. I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to experience. I expected a cold, dark soulless building, it is not. It is indeed the most unusual but exceptional setting for an art exhibition, I expected to find the inside of the prison challenging to photograph, it was not. It was in fact a joy to photograph the angles, the light, the shapes, the arches, the symmetry.

The cells are set over 3 floors, most remain largely unchanged, a few still contain a stench. It is not difficult to block out all sound and to be transported if you so wish, to a “numbered tomb”, to place yourself in a space hardly large enough to store a thin metal bed and a piece of furniture.

Reading Goal’s former inmate Oscar Wilde spent 2 years in cell C22 from 1895 with nothing to read in the first year but a bible and two other books. The prisoners would spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, any time outside the cells was spent in veiled hats so that the inmates would not converse and instead reflect on their crime.

“It is impossible to imagine the loneliness of 23 hours of solitary confinement, day after day”

“Tell, me something. Would you rather spend 2 years in that cell by yourself, or with someone”. Asks an ArtAngel guide.

A question I suspect he has pondered himself and knows the answer to. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to conclude, “By myself”. We marvel at the angles and light in a particular corridor and he directs me to cell C22. The cell itself is as unremarkable as the others, there is nothing to identify it, but it is eerie none the less to occupy the space.

A tiny square window hangs on the opposite wall to the door, tempting the mind to escape to the outside. But it is too high, it is possible to stand on the lavatory and see a tree yet it can not be described as a view by any means. The cell next door contains books read by Oscar Wilde in the second year of his incarceration.

A few cells dotted around the jail contain pieces by modern artists, but it is the jail itself is a piece of art.