THERE'S a new art exhibition on at the Tramway in Glasgow, starting this Friday (November 10) running until December 22. Of course Glasgow has many art exhibitions on at any time so what makes this one special?

I have been invited to play a role in the show – which is called Narrative – for one day only. My task is to accompany people who have signed up for a “mindful tour” of the exhibition, and help them explore two deeply related sets of experiences while they are there. The first is to look inside at various points and try to notice what they themselves are bringing to the exhibition. This may be expectations, assumptions, perhaps even prejudices. Prejudices may of course be favourable or negative towards a particular thing. All these preconceptions colour how we experience the content of the exhibition.

The second set of experiences is the viewing of the exhibition itself. Does it conform to expectations? Does it confirm assumptions? Does it match prejudices or confound them?

All of which leads to deeper explorations. How did we come to have such prejudices and expectations in the first place?

Imagine two individuals, strangers to each other, go along to a Dali art exhibition. One goes along because she loves Dali’s work. The other attends simply because he has nothing else to do. The latter has never even heard of Dali, let alone knows anything about his work.

Now, through some error, the Dali paintings have been mixed up with a set of Jackson Pollocks, and each artist’s work is now set up in the wrong exhibition space.

Our first visitor enters with prior knowledge of Dali but has no knowledge of Pollock’s work. She is shocked at how different the art on display is to what she expected from a Dali exhibition, and yet, assuming that the works are Dali’s, she allows this “different” approach to filter into her understanding of Dali as an artist.

The second visitor, simply sees the incorrectly hung Pollock paintings as Dali works, unimpeded by prior expectations. He either likes or doesn’t like the paintings.

The first visitor has assimilated her new experience into a pre-existing view of an artist’s work. The second visitor has registered for the first time a perspective of an artist’s work. One started with a prejudice, a set of assumptions. The other didn’t. But now both have new assumptions about Dali the artist, and both assumptions are false.

The exhibition at the Tramway is of art works created in prisons, secure hospitals, secure children’s homes, immigration detention centres, and community justice services. It is held by the Koestler Trust, which uses art to help prisoners, and to change people’s views of what prisoners can become. It is curated by the Scottish novelist, Jenni Fagan.

Can any of us attend an exhibition knowing the background of the creation of the works of art, and still experience them, purely, with no pre-conceptions? If we view exhibitions by people from these backgrounds favourably is that not itself a veil through which our view of the exhibition is inevitably coloured?

All of which demands that we face up to major challenges about ourselves, our preferences, indeed the degree to which we can trust and manage our minds. Why do I like the art of William Blake but have no similar liking for Da Vinci’s work? Perhaps more importantly, why do I hold the political and social views I hold rather than the opposite views? More universally still, we need to face the fact that we are continually conditioned about everything.

The science of the mind tells us that our artistic views, like our political ones, are very much grounded in the genes we inherit. All our life experiences then deepen, challenge or reshape these views. Over time we come to think of them as our own, rational chosen, and therefore objectively correct perspectives.

The practice of mindfulness helps us shake off these preconceptions and crucially, the false notion that our own views and opinions are necessarily correct. This is immensely liberating.

The great tragedy is that we are so deeply programmed we can’t recognise this reality, but rather feel that we can experience with truly open minds. My aim at the exhibition tour is to try to help people out of that deluded view.

THERE'S a new art exhibition on at the Tramway in Glasgow, starting this Friday (November 10) running until December 22. Of course Glasgow has many art exhibitions on at any time so what makes this one special?

I have been invited to play a role in the show – which is called Narrative – for one day only. My task is to accompany people who have signed up for a “mindful tour” of the exhibition, and help them explore two deeply related sets of experiences while they are there. The first is to look inside at various points and try to notice what they themselves are bringing to the exhibition. This may be expectations, assumptions, perhaps even prejudices. Prejudices may of course be favourable or negative towards a particular thing. All these preconceptions colour how we experience the content of the exhibition.

The second set of experiences is the viewing of the exhibition itself. Does it conform to expectations? Does it confirm assumptions? Does it match prejudices or confound them?

All of which leads to deeper explorations. How did we come to have such prejudices and expectations in the first place?

Imagine two individuals, strangers to each other, go along to a Dali art exhibition. One goes along because she loves Dali’s work. The other attends simply because he has nothing else to do. The latter has never even heard of Dali, let alone knows anything about his work.

Now, through some error, the Dali paintings have been mixed up with a set of Jackson Pollocks, and each artist’s work is now set up in the wrong exhibition space.

Our first visitor enters with prior knowledge of Dali but has no knowledge of Pollock’s work. She is shocked at how different the art on display is to what she expected from a Dali exhibition, and yet, assuming that the works are Dali’s, she allows this “different” approach to filter into her understanding of Dali as an artist.

The second visitor, simply sees the incorrectly hung Pollock paintings as Dali works, unimpeded by prior expectations. He either likes or doesn’t like the paintings.

The first visitor has assimilated her new experience into a pre-existing view of an artist’s work. The second visitor has registered for the first time a perspective of an artist’s work. One started with a prejudice, a set of assumptions. The other didn’t. But now both have new assumptions about Dali the artist, and both assumptions are false.

The exhibition at the Tramway is of art works created in prisons, secure hospitals, secure children’s homes, immigration detention centres, and community justice services. It is held by the Koestler Trust, which uses art to help prisoners, and to change people’s views of what prisoners can become. It is curated by the Scottish novelist, Jenni Fagan.

Can any of us attend an exhibition knowing the background of the creation of the works of art, and still experience them, purely, with no pre-conceptions? If we view exhibitions by people from these backgrounds favourably is that not itself a veil through which our view of the exhibition is inevitably coloured?

All of which demands that we face up to major challenges about ourselves, our preferences, indeed the degree to which we can trust and manage our minds. Why do I like the art of William Blake but have no similar liking for Da Vinci’s work? Perhaps more importantly, why do I hold the political and social views I hold rather than the opposite views? More universally still, we need to face the fact that we are continually conditioned about everything.

The science of the mind tells us that our artistic views, like our political ones, are very much grounded in the genes we inherit. All our life experiences then deepen, challenge or reshape these views. Over time we come to think of them as our own, rational chosen, and therefore objectively correct perspectives.

The practice of mindfulness helps us shake off these preconceptions and crucially, the false notion that our own views and opinions are necessarily correct. This is immensely liberating.

The great tragedy is that we are so deeply programmed we can’t recognise this reality, but rather feel that we can experience with truly open minds. My aim at the exhibition tour is to try to help people out of that deluded view.

Narrative, which takes place at Tramway in Glasgow, will feature up to 180 works entered from Scotland for the 2017 Koestler Awards – a charitable scheme that recognises artistic achievement in the criminal justice and secure sectors.

The Narrative exhibition runs at Tramway, Glasgow from November 10 to December 22 and will include paintings, sculpture, needlecraft, nail art, printmaking, woodcraft, audio, animation and writing.

www.koestlertrust.org.uk

Martin Stepek's tour day is on Saturday, November 25 at 10.30am. It’s free but booking is required at artmusiclearning@glasgowlife.org.uk