Project gives prisoners taste of artistic freedom

The low-slung trousers, the hoodie, the drawn-out drawl: he is a typical teen, with an art project book in hand, busily sketching his thoughts. I am sitting next to him as his thoughts make it to the A3 paper: a pensive man characterised by enormous wings staring from behind the bars, into the distant, elusive greenery.

This is the crucial difference between Mason Nehls, 18, and any other teenager out there: he is a young offender. “It’s the experience I’m living. I now realise that freedom is the best thing that anyone can have,” he says.

The huge mural done by the whole team hanging on the wall at YOURS.

Mason is taking part in an Art Project co-funded by St James Cavalier and the Foundation of the President’s Award for Creativity. For a couple of hours every Monday afternoon, at the Young Offenders Rehabilitation Services (YOURS) section at the Corradino Correctional Facility, about 10 young inmates take part in the project run by professional tutors. The project has been running since October and will come to an end in July with a street exhibition of all the inmates’ work in Valletta.

“Initially I took it up because I wanted to keep myself occupied, and keep at bay some ugly thoughts, but now I enjoy it and keep on sketching even when I’m in my cell,” says Mason.

Art tutor Carmen Aquilina helps the young inmates with their art projects at the Corradino Correctional Facility.

Another inmate, Kerstin Catania, 20, takes the time to explain to us the different media – clay, sack cloth, ceramics, the lot – used in a huge mural hanging on the wall at YOURS, done by the whole team taking part in the project.

Asked how long he has been experimenting with art, Kerstin says: “I had never picked up a paint brush in my life before I came in here. I never bothered. It’s fun and this is a skill that I will take with me when I’m out.”

He then asks for details about when and where the story will be published – he wants to prove to the world outside that he is capable of doing something good. This is characteristic of inmates who participate in art projects – the guilt of their being incarcerated is often etched on their faces but they light up at the hope that their families and the public will get to see their work.

Art tutor Carmen Aquilina, 28, and Kristina Borg, 24, explain that this project is not merely a number of art lessons. It revolves around a theme, “Hopes and Fears” and apart from sketching, drawing and painting, inmates are involved in planning and brainstorming. “Art is a journey, a development. This is important especially for people who are not artistically inclined – when you break it down to pieces it’s more appealing,” says Ms Aquilina.

The aim of the project is threefold: to encourage teamwork and artistic expression and to give inmates a voice and the possibility of passing on a message to the public outside. “It’s a medium which gives the inmates the chance to express their real self and not the image they want to portray,” says project co-ordinator Olivia Deguara, 29.

“We have this impression that prison is an easy way of life, however once you’re inside it strikes you immediately how hard it is to live without any freedom,” she says.

Arts projects build confidence and self-awareness, trust, co-operation and respect – vital capacities when it comes to reforming attitudes and behaviour in vulnerable people. According to CCF operations manager Joanne Battistino, the role of arts is vital: “The arts can provide routes into learning for those alienated from the formal education system”