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Now, it's not for the squeamish - but it certainly won't leave you bored. The show is called "Society Killed the Teenager"; it opens tomorrow at the Image Factory, but we got a look today:..

Jules Vasquez reporting
Welcome to the very topsy-turvy world of Ruhiel Trejo and Briheda Haylock where nothing is what you thought it to be:

Dean Barrow is the Queen, Francis Fonseca gets a "nope" - instead of hope, as do Mark Espat and John Briceno.

The last supper gets plasticized, Pope John Paul is a poster-icon with a statement as is Martin Luther King, Ghandi and Bob Marley - even George Price gets the red and white treatment - with a cryptic statement below his image.

Dr. Kevin Lee is a camera-man and Shyne gets his mugshot on a milk carton - the sum of his days reduced to a compact declaration of working-man's futility.

Everything is declared plastic and everything is packaged and shelved for sale.

Products are placards - and one throwaway statement is as good or bad as another.

This is the work of Ruhiel Trejo - a young, committed and care-free artist - who doesn't care who he ticks off:

Ruhiel Trejo, Artist
"My art work, if they offend someone, I don't really care; that's their problem. I really like to piss off people, so this is - I guess - a hobby for me as well through my art pieces."

Jules Vasquez
"Is there anything that you consider off limits?"

Ruhiel Trejo, Artist
"No, nothing is off limits."

Including the UNIBAM issue - if you can't read the fine print, this says, "some people are gay, get over it."

Ruhiel Trejo, Artist
"Well my art pieces, it all depends on the person who reads it, and they would think it's good or bad or they just feel no reaction towards it. So it depends on them how they see it - not me. I just create the art; they are the ones who interpret it."

"I don't want them to leave my art show and feel no way about it. I prefer them to love it or hate it, not in between."

The same for Briheda Haylock, who is the other half of the generation - defining art exhibit.

Briheda Haylock, Artist
"The reason for some of our chaos is because of peer pressure - not only by our peers but by other people around us telling us you should do this or to that, making choices for us."

Her work deals also with image - but instead of celebrities, her art ponders self-image:

Briheda Haylock, Artist
"What it's telling people is be confident about yourself. I am also showing what society does to us as individuals, I feel like in Belize we cannot be ourselves 100%, because we will be put down made fun of and it's ridiculous to me. I mean, I want to have bright colored hair, but I can't have it, why? I am going to be labeled as homosexual or as I am craving attention, which I am not. I just like me. I mean, I find that beautiful, so to me people need to be more open minded about being different. Don't follow the status quo the country's quo of what is acceptable. I think everything should be acceptable."

And in this space everything is put on the table - and these artists make no apologies.

Briheda Haylock, Artist
"You can hate us or love us; we don't care; we are not put on this world to make anyone happy with us. We're here to inspire people to open minds; you know that's what an artist does."

Both artists are SJC Junior College students. You can see the art for yourself when it opens on Friday night at 7:00 pm at the Image Factory.

Profiles

And while those sixth formers explore art rebellion - tonight's profile is about a high schooler who's already seen a lifetime of troubles. He grew up without a father and his mother was afflicted with multiple sclerosis and he was forced to stop school to take care of her - which meant going around and begging to get help for his mother.

Somehow he survived - even as his mother passed on. In tonight's profile, he tells us how he made it through many hard times to live up to a promise he made to his mother on her deathbed:..

Untitled from 7News Belize on Vimeo.

The profile series is the joint effort of this station, FULTEC SystemS, NICH and Restore Belize.

Counteraction In Cayo South

As we've reported, there's a new Area Representative in Cayo South. The PUP's Julius Espat crushed his opponent Ramon Witz to emerge as the area representative in one of the country's largest divisions - but he's already run into trouble with the UDP Chairman of Teakettle Village.

It happened today in the Arizona area of that village where Espat is sponsoring the completion of a bus shed. He got villagers to chip in with labour - and work was proceeding today with seating and columns for a roof.

But village Chairman Matthew Patnett wasn't happy and someone called police to arrest the young men who were working on the shed. That's just what Belmopan police quite inexplicably did - and the young men were taken into the station.

As these images from PLUS TV show - shortly after that - hostile forces proceeded to smash the shed and reduce it to rubble. It is the ugliest kind of political tribalism - and more than that, it denies the area a bus stop - which would be used by students. We understand that the two workers have been released but warned by police that they are not to return to the site.