'I was born an artist - the world made me an armed robber': John Costi and Jeremy Deller on Koestler

‘I was under the illusion that it was impossible to do art because of my class and where I come from. I was told that art wasn’t for me, and it took me going to prison for me to realise that it was.’

John Costi’s first interaction with Koestler Arts came whilst he was serving a sentence at HM Young Offender Institution Feltham. Upon release he joined the Koestler Arts Mentoring Scheme, an experience he talks about in this video.

The mentoring scheme led to a job with Koestler as an arts handler, which in turn brought Costi into contact with Jeremy Deller, working on the latter’s exhibition at the 2013 Venice Biennale. The two have built a connection ever since, culminating in their co-curation of the 2024 Koestler Arts exhibition, No Comment.

In this video both Costi and Deller talk about what the opportunity to be creative offers to people who are imprisoned, as well as the challenges of curating No Comment, which came to the Southbank Centre at the end of 2024.