The Garden Collective : a short documentary film

This paper is written in support of The Garden Collective, a short documentary film exploring the memorialization of the former Prison for Women (P4W) in Kingston, Ontario. The film documents the P4W Memorial Collective, a group of formerly incarcerated women, activists and academics, working to establish a memorial garden to honour the many women who lost their lives inside P4W. The Garden Collective features interviews with the Collective and other former prisoners of P4W to provide insight into prisoners’ experiences and past injustices, as well as call into question the ways in which the prison is currently being remembered and historicized by the surrounding community. This paper begins with a chapter analyzing the historical and political context of P4W, followed by a chapter exploring the content within the film from an abolitionist approach. The final chapter of this paper is dedicated to the film’s methodology, visual techniques and ethical challenges.