Selling exhibition of inmates' works opens in Yerevan

The House of Culture of the Erebuni community is housing a selling exhibition of works performed by fifty prisoners serving their sentences in penal institutions in Armenia. The event was organized by the Fund of Assistance to Convicts at the Ministry of Justice.

Sona Karapetyan, an employee of the Fund, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the main mission of the Fund, which is a self-financed structure, is to equip prisoners with necessary tools and materials and sell their finished works. According to her story, the money raised from sale of the works, are transferred by the Fund, at convicts' request, either to their personal bank accounts or to their families.

Ms Karapetyan said that the selling exhibition is aimed not only towards material but also towards moral support of the people who found themselves behind bars. "The persons deprived of their freedom don't lose their hope to be demanded. The convicts feel that people need them, as they appreciate and buy souvenirs made by them from wood, obsidian, ceramics, copper, and even from dried bread, and this is a great moral support," Sona Karapetyan said.

The exhibition features more than 100 items, including stone-crosses, ornaments made of bone and obsidian, wooden boxes, embroidered tablecloths and other works.

The Fund of Assistance to Convicts operates for more than 10 years; and selling exhibitions of convicts' works have been organized repeatedly.