UNTIL SUNDAY 25/2
CARME CENTER. Museum, 2
Raúl Belinchón photographs the penitentiary world of Picassent focusing on the few moments of "freedom" that the inmates have inside a claustrophobic and controlling prison by nature that happens to be the most populated in the state, the second largest in Europe. And he does it by trying to get away from the movie clichés that come to us outsiders. Something like freedom contains portraits of the inmates accompanied by their childhood memories in an attempt to humanize and destigmatize them (the crimes committed do not appear in the entire exhibition) and day-to-day photographs in there, in the gym, to the pool, walking the dog, praying, sunbathing, partying or playing chess, with the permanent presence of cameras and barbed wires when they are outside. Also photographed are tools built by the inmates such as spikes, a home charger with a USB port, an artifact for tattooing and hiding places for the mobile: the deodorant casing or a roll of toilet paper. Belinchón started the project influenced by the quarantine that we all suffered during the pandemic and he did it full of fears and prejudices that he gradually emptied as he got to know the prisoners and their stories, conditioned by conflicting environments and lack of education. Enrique can't write, Beatriz suffered abuse from her uncle and Ramón remembers with happiness the first time he took up a gun to commit a robbery. Hope comes from the hand of an intern with a tattoo of a gun on his abdomen who has a pencil in his hand because he is studying to get his high school diploma. S.M.
