artMuse is an exhibition including the works created by a group of inmates at the Corradino Correctional Facility as participants of a Community Art Project held together with Charmaine Zammit (educator of the project and artistic curator of the exhibition) during the summer of 2017.
The project, entitled entitled “InterESTing Youth @ CCF. The National Art Museum’s Holistic Educational Purposes in the 21st Century: Interactive Educational Strategies targeting Youth at the Corradino Correctional Facility”, was implemented between July and September 2017 and financed through the Creative Communities Fund by the Arts Council Malta.
The displayed works ranged from the participants’ art journals to drawings, comic-art and photography. The project did not aim at the production of aesthetically pleasing artworks but at providing a learning experience through art.
The exhibition is meant as a display of the learning process that the inmates went through while dealing with their own chosen themes including: human relations; graffiti street art; social connections; beliefs; justice and freedom; environmental issues and healing from drug addiction. These themes were developed with reference to the participants’ own selection of works from images of the collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts (now in transition to MUŻA) in Valletta.
Later on in the project, the participants had the opportunity to explore their selected themes through photography and comic art techniques in collaboration with local artists, Stephen Vella and Peter Magro. While developing the chosen theme, each participant has kept an art journal through which ideas could be explored, presented and discussed with others for further development of the themes.
The participants’ art journals form part of the exhibition and are displayed on a table to encourage the visitors to browse through and explore the participants’ documented risk-taking to explore and generate ideas and decision-making.
The project was implemented in collaboration with the Corradino Correctional Facility (Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security). The exhibition was held in collaboration with the Malta School of Art and co-sponsored by Delicata Winemakers.
Check out some news coverage: http://www.newsbook.com.mt/artikli/2017/9/22/tista’-zzur-wirja-tal-arti-mir-residenti-tal-facilita-korrettiva-ta’-kordin.65336/
and our wonderful video of the opening of the exhibition:
