Inspiring creativity and encouraging personal and social change through the arts

The Prison Arts Foundation is as important as it is unique. Thanks to our pioneering work with people with convictions lives are being transformed and patterns of behaviour changed for good.

Our team of experienced professional artists working across the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland are offering people with convictions a life-line, helping to improve their creative and communications skills, which is key to personal and social development, building self-confidence and unlocking people’s potential.

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Exhibitions
& Events

Exhibitions
& Events

Through engagement in artistic activities our students create artworks of value, for display and public exhibition. Each year PAF stage an exhibition of artwork in locations such as arts venues and galleries, community spaces, public buildings and prison environments. We do this to showcase the talent and potential of both serving prisoners and those who are involved with the criminal justice system – in the hope that audiences view each artist as an individual, allowing them to see their emotions through sculpture, paint, music and spoken word, often causing them to reconsider their negative stereotypes. We also print publications of new creative writing and visual artworks in conjunction with projects and exhibitions, available to purchase in our online shop.

Past Exhibitions

14 - 25 March 2023

Embracing Art

Prison Arts Foundation’s annual showcase of art by serving prisoners at Maghaberry, Magilligan and Hydebank Wood College & Women’s Prison, secure patients at Shannon Clinic, and ex-offenders in the community.

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Tipping the Balance

March 2022

Tipping the Balance

The number and proportion of older people in the population is consistently increasing; this is likewise apparent in our criminal justice system.

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31st March 2022

Limited Editions

The exhibition returned to the former Victorian prison after a two-year absence because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on public gatherings and contained the multi-discipline creative works by prisoners from Maghaberry, Magilligan, Hydebank Wood College and Women’s Prison, as well as works created by ex-offenders based in community settings.

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2019

Creative Energy

Creative Energy showcases an amazing body of multimedia work created by the men and women currently within the Northern Ireland prison system, as well as those on non-custodial community sentences.

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2019

The Mythologies of Me

‘The Mythologies of Me’ is a show of works by Acorn Women’s Group and Strangford Integrated College supported with funding from Ards and North Down Borough Council.

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2018

Liberation

Libération – celebrating arts within the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland

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2018

Reflections on Identity

‘Faces of Change: Votes for Women Touring Exhibition’

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2015

Journey

Journey – celebrating arts within the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland

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