A structure that once housed thousands of prisoners now hosts up to 1,000 refugees as well as a creative hub, offering space “in a time of fear and division.” Amsterdam’s Bijlmerbajes first opened in 1978 and closed in 2016, and the complex, which consists of six towers, went up for sale shortly thereafter. It’s set to be demolished later this year – but until then, it’ll function as a temporary home for those seeking asylum in addition to art studios, offices for entrepreneurs and other projects.

The new ‘Lola Lik’ cultural hub opened on January 20th in the former main building of the prison, neighbor to the refugee center known as Wenckebachweg. The complex’s courtyard has been transformed into gardens, and will host Solar World Cinema, a project bringing free films to open-air public spaces.

Lola Lik also hosts The Favela Painting Foundation, which “invigorates public urban spaces by turning them into inspiring and colorful artworks of monumental size.” The group, which is responsible for large-scale art projects in Haiti, Philadelphia and Rio de Janeiro, also helped give the drab concrete prison buildings a cheerful makeover.

The space aims to be an incubator for inspiring projects and businesses operated by both the refugees who live next door and residents who have lived in Amsterdam a bit longer. The space is open to the public, and its studio spaces can be rented. The prison’s former kitchens have been transformed into a ‘Start-Up Kitchen’ run by Jay Asad, a Syrian entrepreneur who formerly owned several restaurants, a hotel and specialty donut shops in Damascus.

The Guardian has launched a virtual reality app for Android users, compatible with low-tech VR devices like Cardboard (which uses your mobile phone); its first story is about solitary confinement, which you can dive into virtually. The preview makes it sound like a horror film, but for prisoners life in solitary can really be a living nightmare.

As The Guardian explains, “6×9 takes you to a virtual cell, telling a story of the psychological damage of extreme isolation. Right now, more than 80,000 people are in solitary confinement in the US. They spend 22-­24 hours a day in their cells, with little to no human contact for days or even decades. We invite you into this world.”

Throughout the enhanced story, six prisoners share personal experiences of life in solitary. This is to be the first of many new ‘virtual journalism’ efforts undertaken by the Guardian, and makes for a good prototype: the piece is impactful, relatively easy to simulate in VR (a single room) and highly relevant given growing concerns about prisoner isolation, especially in America.

Users without Cardboard or other virtual reality equipment can alternatively experience the story through 360-degree videos on personal computers or mobile devices. Whether this is a one-off experiment or the beginning of a new kind of audience integration remains to be seen, but so far the reviews of the app are overwhelmingly positive.

Camp 30, located east of Toronto, was one of Canada’s main World War II POW camps and although named a National Historic Site, continues to be neglected.

The community of Bowmanville, Ontario, is home to just over 40,000 people, many of whom work in Toronto and commute daily via Highway 401. Only a tenth as many made Bowmanville their home in 1941, however, when the Canadian government ordered the Bowmanville Boys Training School (a “school for unadjusted boys who were not inherently delinquent”) to vacate the site. By the end of the year, the former school and its environs had been converted into Camp 30 and the first German prisoners of war arrived. (credit AlexLuyckx with the above images)

Many of these prisoners were considered “high profile” – the reasoning being, the farther they were from Nazi Germany, the less chance of them returning there after a successful escape. Among the more notable Camp 30 prisoners were U-boat commanders Wolfgang Heyda and Otto Kretschmer, the latter credited with sinking 47 ships (totaling 274,333 tons) between the start of the war and his capture in March of 1941. (credit Courtney McIntosh with the above images)

In stark contrast to the treatment doled out to Allied POWs in German prison camps, those prisoners sent to Camp 30 enjoyed a wealth of freedoms and amenities. As Camp 30 was a former boy’s school, prisoners were allowed to use the indoor pool as well as the soccer and football fields. If that wasn’t enough, authorities approved requests to build a tennis court and a mini zoo! (credit ckocur with the above images)

These perks and much more (read about Camp 30 in detail at the unofficial Camp 30 website) didn’t stop the prisoners from carrying out their duty to escape, and at least a half dozen attempts – some quite elaborate and well-planned – were foiled by guards. (credit Rick Harris with the above images)

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Imagine life inside a ring of cells around a central watchtower, where you can never be sure whether you are being observed. This surreal setup became an extreme reality under dictator Gerardo Machado on the Cuban Isla de la Juventud.

One of the creepiest concepts in the history of architecture, the Panopticon model of incarceration design proposes keeping prisoners forever on edge, fearing their watchers.

Both Fidel and Raul Castro spent time within the walls of this Presidio Modelo (Model Prison) complex, which, at its peak, held over 8,000 political prisoners. Apparently they found the approach sufficiently effective, since the Castro regime kept them open as well.

Originally the vision of Jeremy Bentham (and later nightmare of philosopher Michel Foucault), this 18th-Century idea was never realized in its creator’s lifetime but found expression in many structures after his death.  It was originally conceived of as an allegory for the surveillance state and something its critics never expected to be actually built – indeed, they would have been horrified to learn it had been physically realized.

While there are other Panopticon-inspired prisons around the world, this complex in Cuba may be the most literal and direction realization of the original diagrams. It features circular structures and guardhouses in the center of a vast open spaces, all to keep residents in a perpetual state of uncertainty (images via Jason Florio and Wikipedia).

When famed tattoo artist Scott Campbell visited a prison in Mexico to ink people held inside, he didn’t bring a tattoo machine – he made his own, the same way the inmates would, using the materials that can be found within the prison walls. The artist then immortalized these DIY creations in a series of realistic black-and-white watercolor paintings called ‘Things Get Better.’

The title refers to the ‘things’ that the guns are made of: hair picks, plastic utensils, telephone cords, batteries and ballpoint pens. Campbell spent two months visiting the prison, where he worked with the inmates and tattooed them. Since he wasn’t allowed to bring tattoo equipment inside, he had to use what was available. He donated “a few VCRs and a beaten old guitar” to the prison rec room to help the process along. The motors from the VCRs and the guitar strings, which were then used as needles, proved extremely useful for his creations. The needles were sharpened on the grout between tiles.

“I like the idea that inspiration can come from limitations,” Campbell told Life and Times. “There’s a general notion that inspiration is a sort of expansion of awareness or broadening of creative range. This work is inspired by parameters. The openness of a blank canvas and the infiniteness of the possibilities that canvas may contain can be paralyzing.”

“When I have limitations –a confined range of materials –and a specific task to fulfill, it creates a little world that I can get lost in and walls to push against. These paintings are created within parameters that we can imagine ourselves in and, in that way, are relatable. The watercolors are humble and sweet in their simplicity.”