BonnerSprings.com

Locked up inside the Wyandotte County Juvenile Detention Center, the only freedom for many of the young teenagers awaiting their fate is the freedom of thought.

Representations of those thoughts, currently on display in the exhibit "Shutdown: Images from inside the Wyandotte County Juvenile Detention Center," at The Coffee Girls, 310 Southwest Blvd., Kansas City, Mo., speak a powerful message about the dark side of adolescence.

"It's not pretty, this exhibit, but it's a moving one," said Heidi Stubblefield, program director for the Arts in Prison. "It's darker. Each of the pictures say something about identity."

The collection of 24 pieces of work includes photographs, poetry and fabric displays from young women ranging in age from 13 to 17 years old. The works were completed as the young women waited in the detention center for trial or placement following a serious offense.

"Shutdown: Images from inside the Wyandotte County Juvenile Detention Center," is currently showing through the end of June. Hours for the exhibit are 6:30 a.m.- 7 p.m. today, Friday and Monday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m.- 4 p.m. Sunday.

The exhibit was a result of an eight-week summer 2007 workshop taught at the detention center through the Kansas City-based Arts in Prison program that brings art into prison communities. The program at the Wyandotte Detention Center was the program's first attempt to reach out to a youth-oriented community.

The purpose of the class was to investigate identity, Stubblefield said, using a variety of media. Students wrote poetry or words on fabric panels that described items they missed or feelings they experienced being "shut down" in the center.

Many of those fabrics were used to conceal the identity of a student during a portrait session during the photography portion of the class. In one photograph, an outline of a figure can been seen through the fabric, while the student points to the word "lonely" written on her fabric.

"The whole thing has such a mood to it," Stubblefield said. "It's not a happy exhibit by any sense of the word."

Students looked for ways to express feelings in a photograph without showing the identities of their subjects. Stubblefield said storytelling was a central focus of the class encouraging the girls to share their own stories to create a group environment.

Stubblefield, who has now worked with both adults and youths in detention, said there was a big difference in the kind of art both age groups create. For youths, she said the work is darker, which shows their pessimistic view of the world. Images of beauty are typical of adult works, she said, because that's what the prisoners are hoping for at the end of their incarceration.

The workshop was designed to give hope and create personal growth opportunities for the youths. Stubblefield said students were able to learn technical skills while using the cameras during the workshop.

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