creativity from despair

Tuesday 14th Oct, 2008 by emtron

Categories: Other

I was in the Royal Festival Hall today and got blown away (again) by the exhibitions going on.

The first one I came across was the UK’s annual national show of Art By Offenders. Truly amazing art creations including sculpture, photography, textiles, printing and recylcing. It was both transfixing and heartwrenching to see these amazing pieces of work telling such poigniant stories and making powerful statements visually.

One of the things that hit home is that the artists can’t even see their work being exhibited and see the reaction of the public, or how people interact with their work.

I can’t even really put into words how I felt looking at this art. So many images have stayed with me all day, especially one of the self portraits. I’m not sure how much of it was done by young people, but I don’t think that is important. Recurrent themes of freedom, frustration and introspection really engage you as you look at the art - I think that’s what is important.

It’s free and easy to get to (www.southbankcentre.com).

I’m going again with a photographer mate next week, and again to take another look tomorrow and I’ve invited a friend from Youth Offending to go at the weekend.

If you can get there with any young people, or just yourself I would highly recommend it. It’s up there with LCET’s ‘Hear Me’ exhibition in terms of great art by young people.

There’s more about the Koestler turst here - www.koestlertrust.org.uk