14/12/2017
A CREATIVE DAY IN PRISON
What an amazing honour to witness what Sofie Legon and her team does with Hart Labeur. It truly is a labour of love.
As the prison gates opened, a sense of immense despair, anger and shame hit me, as if a collective imprint of all those gone before was poured into me.
I had set myself on blank, just to experience, without expectation … and I came out that afternoon awe struck, with an emotionally swollen heart.
My first surprise was the trust and acceptance I was given by the inmates to photograph them. After all, some of them were in there for serious offences. And how much would they trust my motives or feel at ease with a camera following their every move?
What overwhelmed me most, I guess, was how Sofie’s project truly succeeds in bringing women together; to fade out the walls and diminish their feeling of captivity, to give them some sense of worthiness. Jut for the duration of crafts workshop they are women and not defined by the wrong they did.
There is little diversion in prison, budgets are low, and so is moral of course. Strenuous situation for both guards and inmates.
The money they make with the handiworks Hart Labeur sells in their name is for them to spend. Some have victims to pay, others don’t have an income at all, so the little they make helps to get some basic needs fulfilled, or maybe to afford a guilty pleasure to break the dull grey concrete life.
My jaw dropped, as I realised these human beings, flawed and faulted, are reminded each moment of their day of their guilt, only get 15 minutes out of their cells a day for a walk. Today is different, they sit and chat and are creative.
And as the guard joins in crochet, they start to talk. I realised, they hardly or never talk. There is ‘them’ and ‘us’, and that’s also needed to maintain order. But today that line was still clear but not harsh, and I think both the guard as the inmates understand each other a little better after.
It’s a small gesture, in the major penalisation sea it’s merely a drop. But it’s a bright one. One of hope, one that show so much can be done. That a little creativity and a good heart can make a difference in this cold world.
It teaches how to create connection between people, it’s a start to see how to give second chances and how to feel worthy of receiving them.
Of course it all is more complicated than that, and I’m well aware that it doesn’t cure what made these women do what they did, but perhaps it’s a start to greater insight.
THANK YOU Sofie,
I intended to give Hart Labeur a gift by capturing these moments for you to my best ability, but in reality you, your mom and sister are the ones who gave me a priceless experience.
more pictures at :
https://lani49.wixsite.com/hart-labeur
