ABSTRACT
Feast of Colour was the title for an exhibition chosen by a group of former street girls, now living in a government institution in Khartoum, Sudan. Following a three-month visual arts workshop, they were invited to create an exhibition of their drawings and paintings which would be shown at the British Council Gallery in the city centre. Their work was bright, original and bursting with colour – houses and flowers and landscapes and a fabulous three-humped camel – lined the walls. Art was a way in which the girls could present themselves to the world, where for that moment at least, they were not shamassa (colloquially translated as ‘children of the sun’ or street children), not stigmatised or seen as criminals. They were artists.
