my community channel

Renowned war artist John Keane travelled to Angola in August 2006 with Christian Aid to discover the issues faced by millions of young people living in the war torn country. Angola in the Frame premieres on Community Channel on 5 March at 9pm, and follows Keane’s journey to the southern African country.

Keane visited post-conflict projects funded by the international development charity.  He visited partner organisations in the capital Luanda and the remote southerly area of Mavinga in Kuando Kubango province. 
 
He spent time with children who lost parents during the 27-year civil war, which ended in 2002, and witnessed how children and adults are working together to rebuild their communities.  He also learned that the spread of HIV is the next battle facing Angola’s 15 million inhabitants. 
 
The programme follows Keane on his journey, meeting local people and gaining inspiration for the series of 11 new paintings commissioned by Christian Aid. The exhibition, John Keane: Angola, opens at Flowers Central, Cork Street, London on 5 March and runs until 29 March 2008.

It features large-scale figurative paintings with elements of collage and patterns evoking the Angolan culture and depicting the individuals whose stories moved him.

Fashion designer Nicole Farhi has also teamed up with Keane and Christian Aid to launch a range of limited edition clothing to highlight the plight of the millions of Angolan children. Prints from four of Keane’s paintings are replicated on a selection of shirts, t-shirts and a unisex canvas bag, to be sold in Nicole Farhi’s London stores. The clothing is also on sale on the Christian Aid eBay store, with prices starting from £30. 
 
Almost half of Angola’s population is under the age of 15 and life expectancy is only 41 years. It has the third highest child mortality rate in the world with one in four children dying before their fifth birthday.  This year Angola marks six years of peace but the road to full recovery will take much longer and will need international assistance for many years to come.
 
John Keane said, ‘As a father of two, the plight of children in Angola invited poignant comparison. I met children who had endured horrific hardships, who had seen their parents murdered in front of them, had spent many years in Zambia as refugees; damaged children who have no choice but to hope the future will be better than their past.
 
‘In the work I have produced I have attempted to evoke the huge tasks of reconstruction and reconciliation in the face of enormous odds, but at the same time allude to the indomitable optimism of the human spirit I encountered in the new generation of post-war Angolans which, in difficult moments, I felt was almost the only resource available to them.’

ENDS

Notes to Editors:
 
For further information please contact Penny Crook at Community Channel on 0207 874 7651, pennyc@communitychannel.org, or Rachel Lailey on 0207 874 7098, rachell@communitychannel.org

For further information on Nicole Farhi and the John Keane: Angola exhibition please contact Julia Fairrie on 020 7523 2418 or email jfairrie@christian-aid.org or Karen Hedges on 020 7523 2404 or email khedges@christian-aid.org.

To buy products from the Nicole Farhi ‘Angola’ range visit: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/christianaid

About Community Channel
Community Channel is dedicated to engaging audiences with the charitable and voluntary sector, showcasing stories and issues that inspire action and encourage involvement.  Broadcasting original shows, the best of terrestrial TV and showcasing the work of new directors and community programme makers, Community Channel is the place for real-life stories from communities around the world.  

The channel is broadcast 24 hours a day on Sky 539, Virgin TV 233 and from 6am to 9am on Freeview 87.  The channel is a free-to-air TV station available to 16.5 million digital households in the UK and to 41 million potential viewers. Around 1.5 million people tune in every month and we receive more than 12,000 interactions with viewers a week.
 
About Christian Aid
Christian Aid is an international development agency working in 50 countries with people of all religions and none. For more information and to see the online gallery visit: www.christianaid.org.uk/conflict
 
About John Keane
John Keane was the official British war artist during the first Gulf War and has work displayed in numerous public collections including the National Portrait Gallery and the Contemporary Art Society.

John Keane was born in Hertfordshire in 1954 and attended Camberwell School of Art. His vivid, shocking, and often darkly comic paintings have focused on many of the most pressing political questions of our age.  He came to national prominence in 1991 when he was appointed as official British war artist during the Gulf War. His work has always been deeply concerned with conflict - military, political and social - in Britain and around the world. His subjects have ranged from Northern Ireland to Nicaragua, and from the British coal industry to the mass media.  His topics are more commonly associated with journalism than fine art. Yet through his paintings Keane confronts issues and explores their subtleties in a unique and penetrating way.
 
Keane’s current Children in Conflict exhibition complements Keane’s paintings by bringing together high profile contemporary fine artists who have engaged with similar subjects.  Photography, photomontage, ceramics and installation by artists including Anthony Haughey, Laura Ford, Simon Norfolk, Emma Summers and Guy Tillim depict conflicts of the modern era across four continents. Drawings by children attending the Christian Aid partner ‘Culture and Free Thought Association’ in Gaza will also be displayed.

Christian Aid partners in Angola visited by John Keane:
SOS Habitat – Luanda SOS Habitat, set up in 2003, protects poor people’s housing rights in the vastly overcrowded capital Luanda. Now the war is over, thousands of slum homes are under threat as the government and private businesses search for new land to develop. SOS Habitat uses legal and media outlets to publicise and challenge unlawful evictions and demolitions, and encourages poor people to use their votes to pressure the government to recognise their housing rights. SOS Habitat is a small secular organisation, made up of 10 local community activists. Christian Aid has been supporting it since 2004.
 
IECA – Mavinga IECA is the Angolan Congregational Church, Angola’s largest protestant church. It has supported IECA’s development work since 1997.  It works with war returnees in Kuando Kubango province, a very isolated area in southern Angola. The project supports families who have recently returned home, helping them to restart farming, dig wells, learn about health risks including HIV, and learn skills such as literacy, carpentry and bee-keeping.
 
ACJ – Luanda ACJ is the Association of Christian Youth.  It runs health, water, sanitation, education and vocational training projects in Luanda. Christian Aid funds ACJ’s malaria and HIV awareness work. ACJ trains school and community volunteers to spread the word amongst their peers, speaking at events and going from house to house. To reach even more people, ACJ has also teamed up with a local theatre group which performs in schools, churches, market places and even in the street, attracting audiences of up to 1,500.