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For several weeks, puppeteers and a photographer have been running practical art workshops with men in detention at the Charleville-Mézières prison. The participants were introduced to puppet construction, puppet animation, object theatre and photography, and for a few hours they worked with the artists, passing on their gestures to help them escape their difficult daily lives and express themselves. The result is a series of surprising images: pure, well-framed, brightly coloured, as if ‘vitaminised’, they are a striking contrast to the prison world. Exhibiting these photographs taken inside means digging tunnels to the outside world. Art doesn’t build walls, it crosses them. Artists are wall-breakers.

Photographs: Hervé Dapremont; Text: Aurélie Hubeau (ESNAM 6)