Shooting Young Offenders by Kirsteen Ashton

Will definitely be going to see this at some point over the next week :)

6th November - 11th December 2010 (Closed 18th November - see below) Private View, Wednesday 10th November 2010, 6pm - 8pm. All welcome. Please RSVP to: info@projectspaceleeds.org.uk. Kirsteen Ashton is a social documentary photographer who is fascinated by people and aims to capture sensitive images of individuals whose stories need telling. She spent five weeks with a group of thirteen 14-18 year old young offenders attending a Summer Arts College in Batley. They were exposed to different art forms and taken on cultural day trips. She witnessed the power of the creative process to engage them and to help them realise that they have potential. In her images, she captures their personal journeys from hostility, through vulnerability, to achievement. Their story is told through her photography, their artwork, and a short film that they created about the dangers of M-CAT. The film is called ‘A Different Window,’ the concept being that if they are helped to see the world differently, they might react to it differently. Collectively, this work questions the approach of the justice system; tougher sentencing for kids as a deterrent, or greater investment in them so that they can be shown an alternative path?