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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Damien Edgar

Prisoners' art in Belfast 'challenging public perception'

An exhibition of prisoners' art in Belfast city centre has been challenging public perceptions of what a prisoner looks like.

The Embracing Art exhibition finished its run at 2 Royal Avenue on Saturday, where it had allowed the public to see another side to prisoners.

The display was run by the Prison Arts Foundation, which provides arts classes for those in custody across Northern Ireland.

Read more: Offenders completing community service convert books into Braille

Fred Caulfield, Executive Director of the charity, said it was an important way of getting prisoners to engage with the worlds outside and vice versa.

"It included a wide range of art forms including paintings, drawings, modelling, crafts, music and creative writing," he said.

"From our point of view, it's important to engage with the public to challenge perception and encourage greater integration into society, which is one of the main problems for prisoners when they come out of custody.

"It's a way of working with people in custody to bring out their creative side and also transform their lives and patterns of behaviour.

"The arts are a powerful tool for engagement and creativity and can play a significant role in rehabilitation."

He went on to say that they put a great deal of effort into teaching prisoners how to tap into their creative side.

"We have our artists who actually go into all the prisons, different artists, across paintings, music, creative writings and so on and they take classes each week," he added.

"Nearly every day of the week we have someone in one of the prisons working.

"They work with a range of prisoners from paramilitary types through to other prisoners and in the community, they work as well in hostels and in our support hub."

This year, the exhibition moved from its usual location of Crumlin Road Gaol, and ran for a longer period of two weeks as well.

"It lets the public see that these people are trying to change their habits," said Fred.

"The people we have coming through it, families would come in and view it and see what their husbands, sons, mothers, daughters have done.

"All of the work we have is from lifers right down to short-termers in custody.

"The response has been excellent, there are people who have friends or family in custody and they've been asking can they get them involved in it.

"It's a good way of putting across how what we do in custody and mental wellbeing and gives them that focus and that work ethic."

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