Young people caught up in Hackney’s postcode wars have been given the chance to express themselves through paint.
A project called Inner Art is being showcased at City Hall this week, featuring work by a group of local teenagers involved in gang crime.
The exhibition is the product of a series of “art therapy” workshops designed to encourage youngsters aged between the ages of 14 and 18 to express their feelings through art. The project’s therapists say frustration with gang culture and postcode rivalries is the sensation most commonly communicated by the teenagers.
“They brought up a lot about gangs, knives and the issues of the boundaries created by post codes,” said Eileen Bellot, a therapist at Hands Inc, the company behind the workshops. “People talked about not feeling heard or listened to and feeling sucked in by the gang culture.”
Bellot said she was impressed by the way the youngsters, who were all referred to Hands Inc by the Hackney Youth Offending Team, responded to the programme. They particularly enjoyed an outdoor graffiti project inspired by urban street artist Banksy.
“Three of them painted their postcodes and out of this came a discussion about their difficulties growing up in areas where gangs would not allow them to cross certain invisible borders into a different postcode area,” Bellot said.
“They were then asked to think about how the images made them feel […] they named a range of feelings from disgust to humour and shock to uncertainty.”
One workshop produced a special success story. “The image we used on the exhibition poster was produced by one of the young men who had got into trouble for doing graffiti work. A group called Skyways came down and he was able to do some work on canvas. We’ve used it for the exhibition programme and he’s absolutely made up by it. It’s really improved his self-esteem.”
The exhibition is on display at the City Hall Chamber Gallery until March 20
The projectalso forced members of different gangs to come together amicably for the first time. The several collaborative pieces they produced show it was possible for them to let go of their differences to work as a team.
Hands Inc used to do similar workshops in schools focusing on crime prevention, but they now target those who have already been in trouble.
Bellot said: “We’ve been giving them the opportunity to use self-expressive art as a way of looking at their behaviour, challenging their world view and exploring social issues.”
The post Painting over the postcode wars in Hackney’s community appeared first on Hackney Post.