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27 Nov 2011

Drawing a line under torture

Images from the Thirty Six Pounds exhibition in London, held by Freedom from Torture. All the pictures are by torture survivors. You can find out more at art.freedomfromtorture.org

Azi is one of the artists exhibiting in a show held by Freedom from Torture. All the artists are torture survivors.

Rape is also by Azi, who was tortured in Iran for her role in the Tehran women’s movement.

Hasan has been in the UK for three years, receiving therapy from Freedom from Torture since 2009.

‘Art isn’t magic, but sometimes it can be quite useful,’ says Hasan, who also painted this picture.

Siad arrived in the UK as a lone minor from Afghanistan in 2002. He says his pictures are a way of making sense of his traumatic journey.

Women Alone, another painting in the Thirty Six Pounds exhibition, is also by Siad, who is yet to be granted refugee status in the UK.

Uvindu, an award-winning journalist and freedom of expression activist in exile from Sri Lanka, finds art a form of therapy in the wake of Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war.

Uvindu has painted all his life. He says Freedom from Torture’s Open Art Studio is a ‘soft place to fall’ for torture survivors.