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HOMELESS
31.01.2012 / News / 0 Comments
Ex-Helmand soldier sculptor's model
Being down and out in London can be more frightening than fighting in Helmand Province, Craig O'Keeffe belueves. When he left the army in 2009 after 12 years' service, leaving 22 comrades dead in Afghanistan, he had no job and sank into alcoholism. He lived on the streets for over a year before he was rescued by Crisis, the charity devoted to helping London's single homeless. "It was more dangerous than Afghanistan in some ways, because I was completely alone. I nearly died," he said.
Now 34-year-old O'Keeffe is the subject of a sculpture by Turner Prize winning artist Gillian Wearing as one of the leading artists who is making work to be auctioned for Crisis. Other artists who have committed work to the scheme include Antony Gormley, Sir Anthony Caro, Tracey Emin, Yinka Shonibare, Jonathan Yeo and Nika Neelova.
"For years I've been wanting to do a piece about the situation for discharged soldiers with nowhere to go, after the leave the safety of the institution of the army," Wearing said. "Crisis, for which Craig had been doing some work, introduced us and he was exactly right. In the sculpture he's dressed as he would have been when he was homeless - the only problem was that he tends to look rather smarter that you expect homeless people to be."
A year ago O'Keeffe wandered into a Crisis centre and his rehabilitation began. He now has his own flat in the East End and is working as a maintenance engineer in the City for MITIE, the property maintenance company that has a scheme with Crisis for helping people back into society. He also gives lectures to Crisis clients on how to survive personal disaster and find success.
The artists are part of The Crisis Commission, a series of works of at that will be put on exhibition at Somerset House in London between March 14 and April 22, the cost of the work being met by sponsor GlaxoSmithKline. Christie's will auction the works in May with the proceeds going to Crisis.
Leslie Morphy, chief executive of Crisis, said that the number of people sleeping rough in London had risen by 8% to almost 4,000. "This prestigious event will raise much needed funds for our work and bring a new focus to the worrying current rise in homelessness in society," she said.
"The most powerful social sculpture of our times is made by the quiet performances of the homeless with the shelter provided by the entrances to the shops and restaurants of our inner cities," Antony Gormley said. "This exhibition allows one to think about those bodies that have no place. I believe that sculpture can powerfully evoke the nameless, the voiceless and the placeless, and I am proud to be part of and am inspired by this visionary project".
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