PARACHUTE
FACTORY Erector Square, 319 Peck St.,
Building 1, New Haven
CURRENT EXHIBITION
April 5 to June 30, 2011
See Inside at The Parachute Factory: Incarcerated
Youth Share Their Stories
The Arts Council of Greater New Haven announces the opening
of See Inside, a highly collaborative art exhibit
that gives incarcerated youth a chance to share their stories.
The exhibition will be on display at The Parachute Factory,
Erector Square, 319 Peck St., Bldg. 1, New Haven, from Tuesday,
April 5 through Thursday, June 30. An artists’
reception is scheduled for Tuesday, April 5, from 5-7pm.
The public is invited to attend.
The project is presented by the Arts Council of Greater New
Haven and the Connecticut Mental Health Center Foundation
in collaboration with the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance
(CJJA) and the Community Partners in Action (CPA) Prison Arts
Program.
CJJA advocates for community programs that prevent delinquency
and for fair, effective treatment to help children who do
enter the system. The CPA’s Prison Arts Program promotes
self-examination and self-esteem in Connecticut inmates through
participation in visual arts classes, exhibitions and publications
while sharing their contributions with the community at large.
See Inside features visual works, musical pieces
and poetry gathered from teens in juvenile justice programs
from around the state. “Kids [have] talked about what
an important coping skill making art [has] become for them,”
commented CJJA Executive Director Abby Anderson. “Sadly,
most of them didn’t have the opportunity to develop
their talents in their own schools or communities.”
Jeffrey Greene, CPA’s Program Manager for the Prison
Arts Program, says the show “brings together the individual
experiences, talents, emotions and ideas from throughout the
community to make a constructive difference in the lives of
young people….it’s really exciting. It [also]
gives the prison staff and the people in the community the
chance to see the inmate as more than a number and a crime.”
One teen involved feels she has benefited “just by looking
at the artwork and finding out people’s feelings toward
their problems.”
“Tell Me What You See,” a thirty-five part work
made up of a grid of 18” by 24” paintings, is
the centerpiece of the CPA’s STD health education program,
used in Connecticut’s high schools since 2009. The program
relates the experiences of incarcerated youth to high school
students through the medium of art. Students are given the
opportunity to see how their own choices lead directly to
consequences – for better or worse – while the
artists are able to consider their own choices and the direction
of their lives in the process. According to one student involved,
“the program makes me see the regret and fear of STD’s,
hepatitis and HIV/AIDS.”
Many of the artists contributing work to See Inside
have found ways to creatively address areas of great struggle
in their lives. One young poet writes:
Like a monkey I climb, but
I fall like a baby bird.
See Inside also features works from teens through
The Connecticut Juvenile Training School, Our Piece of the
Pie, FSW, North American Family Institute, Innovation in Education
and Children’s Community Programs of Connecticut.
For more information about See Inside, please call
the Arts Council at (203) 772-2788.
