Lend your fingerprints for World Homeless Day art project

Members of the public are being invited to lend their support – and their fingerprints - to an art project with a difference ahead of this year’s World Homeless Day (10th October).

On Thursday 8th October, Londoners will be tasked with helping artist John Dolan finish a giant mural in Box Park Square, Shoreditch in aid of homeless charity StreetLink.

John lived on the streets for over 20 years before being discovered by a gallery owner, and is now one of East London’s most notorious artists with sell-out exhibitions and pieces going for six figure sums.

But forget paintbrushes, it’s the public’s fingerprints that John needs to bring his artwork to life. The finished portrait will reveal the face of Victor, a one-time classically trained pianist who now sleeps rough on Shoreditch High Street.

StreetLink, a service that allows members of the public to alert local outreach services about someone sleeping rough at the touch of a button, is behind the art project, and is looking to complete the original work with just over 2,700 fingerprints, symbolising the number of people who sleep on the streets of England each year .

John Dolan said: “I want to use fingerprints – the most iconic markers of individual identity – to fill in the shadows, details and features of the portrait. Homeless people are often ignored, nameless and invisible to the majority of the public, as I know only too well. Addressing the facelessness of the problem by creating a giant portrait of Victor, and telling the human side of his story, will hopefully make people sit up and think differently about the people they pass by every day.”

Since it launched in December 2012, StreetLink has sent more than 30,000 alerts about people sleeping rough and helped over 11,000 people take a positive step away from the streets. The website, mobile app and phone-line play a crucial role in breaking the cycle of homelessness.

Matt Harrison, Director of StreetLink, said: “We’re really hoping that the public will not only get behind the idea and lend their fingerprints for a worthy cause, but also support the charity long term by downloading and using the app. We need to raise £100,000 to keep StreetLink going next year so it’s essential for people to realise how important the service is – contacting us takes just a few minutes and can mean the difference between life and death for someone sleeping rough. Help is literally at your fingertips.”