panaji the latest addition to indias growing constellation of art hubs may just be aguada central jail a group of prisoners there have turned artists and appear to be displaying abilities that would hold their own even against art graduates but these inmates are also graduates after a fashion of an ambitious prison art programme launched in 2009 called blue shores a motley groupa majority of which is made up of liferswas preselected for the art programme and asked to participate in the creative processes laid out by instructors the programme is a fouryear one with a fairly extensive arts syllabus that includes courses in painting performance art and creative writing all of which are conducted at the jail which is located right by the mandovi river in goas sinquerim blue shores was cofounded by abstract painter and theorist swatee nair in association with novelist and curator margaret mascarenhas the measure of the prison artists talent lies in the ability to create objects of aesthetic value out of severely limited resources but primarily out of the impecunious conditions of the prison and the compromised raw material of the artists own life story mascarenhas tells toi the cofounders point out how the grim and unfortunate realities of prison lifeboredom the desire to escape the oppressiveness of the jail cellmay also be enabling we have seen their worlds expand through their imaginations beyond the cramped quarters limited light and narrow vistas of their prison cells we have seen how artistic expression can emerge in this most restrictive of environments says mascarenhas works from the programme have even been exhibited in december 2010 one such exhibition was held at sunaparanta goa centre for the arts and was inaugurated by retired cop julio ribeiro it included paintings on paper and canvas and a video installation called becoming blue it was a charity event with all proceeds going to the caritas centre goa which looks after homeless children with hiv the project was initially seedfunded by sunaparanta where mascarenhas was director when she was approached by nair with the idea the two had to provide documentation on global prison art projects around the world to goas inspector general of prisons who turned out to be receptive and helpful funding also came from former national gallery of modern art ngma director saryu doshi through her familys charity foundation mascarenhas and nair were also inspired to develop content by international artist liz kemp who sent them material on the barlinnie prison art programme in scotland a story of how the character of valmiki in balmiki pratibha a musical drama by rabindranath tagore transformed a hardened convict from kolkata into a top performer was used to introduce performance art to the class at the goa jail by artist and dancer crisologo furtado since the class included men with varying levels of literacy who spoke different languages innovative ways to help them express themselves in words had to be developed naturally these men were not keen on full