This World Heart Day, the British Heart Foundation has teamed up with world renowned photographer Rankin to launch an international art project with creatives from around the world, to raise awareness of the global fight against heart disease.
‘Heart for a Heart’ has seen celebrated artists, celebrities, photographers, and brands from around the world unite against heart disease by creating unique heart-themed artwork and uploading them to social media in celebration of World Heart Day.
The social media movement aims to raise awareness of heart and circulatory disease – the leading cause of death worldwide. In the UK alone, nearly 160,000 lives are lost to these devastating conditions each year, one every three minutes. Globally it causes an estimated 17.7 million deaths a year.
Among those taking part include actors Simon Pegg, Carey Mulligan, Anna Friel, Nicholas Hoult, Gillian Anderson, Sadie Frost, Ashley Margolis, Max Beesley, Noel Anthony Clarke, and Emma Pierson; TV personalities Holly Willoughby, Laura Whitmore and Abbey Clancy; and Texas singer Sharleen Spiteri.
The event has also attracted a range of stars from the fashion and art world who have all submitted their own creations, including: models Erin O'Connor, and Helena Christensen; fashion designer Giles Deacon; high-profile British artists including Duggie Fields, Hayden Kays, Antony Micallef and Caragh Thuring; and acclaimed photographer to the stars Gered Mankowitz.
The BHF is asking everyone to take part by creating their own unique artwork and uploading it to social media using the hashtag #heartforaheart and tagging the BHF in the image.
Participants can be in with the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be photographed by Rankin, and one lucky student could win a week’s internship with the man himself.
Rankin said: "Every three minutes someone is lost to heart and circulatory disease in the UK, so we’re hugely grateful to all these amazing artists for getting involved. The heart is the universal symbol. It can be romantic, it can be broken, it can be used on t-shirts to profess a love for a city. And, in recent years, it is synonymous with social media. The team and I wanted to make that mean something. And what better way than to raise awareness for the amazing work that British Heart Foundation does. We can all be guilty of taking it for granted that our bodies keep working. “HEART for a HEART” is a just a little moment to recognise and salute it."
BHF is committed to investing half a billion pounds into life saving research by 2020 to help break new ground, and find new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat heart and circulatory disease.
Simon Gillespie, BHF Chief Executive, said: “Heart disease is heartless. Too many lives are lost to these terrible conditions each year, but through our vital research we are determined to end this devastation. It’s fantastic to have the support of Rankin, and all of these incredible celebrities and artists on World Heart Day, helping us to keep more hearts beating.”
All of the artwork submitted for the “Heart for a Heart” project, can be found at www.heartforaheart.co.uk.
Source: British Heart Foundation
