Inspector of Prisons Judge Michael Reilly will speak at the public launch of a national prison art exhibition taking place tonight, Thursday April 26 in Limerick at 7pm. Raggle Taggle Consortium, at the former Benetton outlet in Sarsfield Street, is host venue for The Crushed Bull exhibition right through RiverFest until Wednesday May 9.
This is the second leg of the exhibition which was on display in the Kilmainham Gaol Museum for the past month, some of its works travelling to Raggle Taggle by invitation from the Hunt Museum, Limerick.
The exhibition The Crushed Bull is the culmination of artistic work created by prisoners from prisons throughout Ireland. It also includes work from two post release centres, Pace and the Pathways Project, Dublin. The works on display in the exhibition cover a broad variety of art forms including paintings, drawings, sculpture, lino prints, mosaic, jewellery, photography, video and pottery. The majority of the work was framed by prisoners working in the framing workshop in Wheatfield Prison.
According to the Irish Prison Service’s director general, Mr Michael Donnellan, “The aim of the Prison Education Service is to deliver a high quality, broad, flexible programme of education that helps prisoners cope with their sentence, achieve personal development, prepare for life after release and establish an appetite and capacity for lifelong learning. The service seeks to deliver relevant programmes that cater for holistic needs, ensure broad access and high participation, and prioritise those with basic education needs. It promotes the principles of adult and community education and supports a multidisciplinary approach within the prison system”.
This exhibition is an opportunity for the Irish Prison Service to put on public view a sample of the many excellent items of art work being produced in each of the Prison Education Centres every day.
