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How the street kids found a voice through searing art An extraordinary exhibition at Tate Modern, created by teenagers scarred by drugs and abuse, has been hailed by critics. Amelia Hill on the woman behind the show. It was an impressive opening night even by the usual standards of the Tate Modern. But when the creative director of the BBC, Alan Yentob, asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the deputy director of the gallery, Alex Beard, and the other 500 guests to raise their glasses to the success of the new show, the woman who had struggled for two years to make it happen was in the bushes nearby, wrestling with one of the artists as he screamed, bit and fought. 'I had to physically wrestle this 16-year-old boy to the ground and sit on him before he would calm down,' said Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder and director of Kids Company. 'It took me two hours, by which time everyone had gone home and I was left sitting there on the gravel, in the dark bushes, with this child lying across my legs, sobbing his heart out.' Tussling with a troubled teenager is not a usual way to spend the launch party of a prestigious show but the new installation is a highly unusual event: a shocking embodiment of the pain felt by children whose lives have been stained and ripped to shreds through experiences the rest of us can hardly imagine. Sited in a collection of old portable buildings, the children have, with the help of professional artists, created remarkable art: two rooms recreate the squalid hell of a crack house, with slumped figures ignoring the baby in the corner, while the pink faux-safety of a little girl's bedroom is mocked by the child on the bed, who lies with her legs wrenched open as a mobile of men's boots swings above her head. In other rooms, a table of brains lie on a table showing what a lifetime of abuse has left in the children's heads: a black scorpion, severed wires labelled 'love' and a carefully drawn picture of a smiling little girl in a red skirt carrying flowers, that has been screwed into a tiny ball and shoved into the furthest recesses of the brain. Shrinking Childhoods is a crystallisation of the collective memories of teenagers whose lives have been scarred by drugs, prostitution and abuse. These are the children who grew up in houses where dustbin liners were used as curtains, where every stick of furniture and item of any worth had long ago been sold for drug money and where guns were a common sight. 'These children live in a world where adults, coming round from one hit in the crack house and desperate for another, simply pick the nearest child up from the floor and take them out onto the street,' said Batmanghelidjh. 'It might be their child, it might be someone else's child; it doesn't matter. It sounds extreme but it is very common. 'Children have no childhood in this slice of society: I regularly have to deal with young boys traumatised by having had the barrels of guns pushed down their throats by drug dealers, as they sobbed and begged for their lives. 'The only way for these children to survive is to die on the inside: they become emotionally cold without any capacity for empathy. If you get that level of non-feeling and you put it into a chaotic neighbourhood, the potential for violence and crime is terrifying.' Batmanghelidjh might have missed the launch itself but the mere guest list makes her shake with laughter. 'I didn't know Alan Yentob from Adam. I have political asylum in this country: I have no access to these people. At one point, I had both Alan Yentob and the former controller of Channel Four, Michael Jackson, as trustees; their support didn't come from me networking ― it's all been word of mouth: they have heard about what we do and come to us.' Kids Company has attracted even more high-profile names: Cherie Booth is a firm supporter: she hosted a parliamentary event for the company earlier this year and will visit the exhibition privately this week. Prince Charles has visited the company at its home in south London three times and bought Batmanghelidjh to St James Palace to meet potential funders. Prince Harry has popped along, as has the Queen of Jordan. It is not the profile of these people that impresses Batmanghelidjh, however, but their genuine interest in the cause. 'I am not a fool: I recognise that the involvement of powerful people allows things to happen but I come from a background of great wealth and prestige in my own country, and so they in themselves don't impress me,' she said. 'What I am impressed by is that none of our high-profile supporters have ever asked for anything back: they don't want their name on our stationery, they don't want public recognition, they just want to help these children.' Which is fortunate: Kids Company survives hand-to-mouth on 90 per cent voluntary funding and although Batmanghelidjh has remortaged her house twice, the company has come perilously close to closing more times than she cares to remember. The exhibition, open for the next three months, was two years in the making but was installed over one weekend during which 20 children worked from early in the morning to late at night each day, each one with a therapist by their side. James, now 19 years old, was one of the five teenagers who created the room where the little girl lies on the bed. 'I was abused by my mother's partner from the age of three until I was six, then they started bringing round about 30 people a day to abuse me until I was about 11,' he said. 'When I cried, they stripped me, then hit me and locked me in a cupboard. 'I was always sick at school, so my teachers kept sending me back home. I had no escape,' he said. When he was 12 years old, his mother left her partner and began relying on her son to supply her with drug money. When he was 15, unable to bear it any more, James put himself into foster care. 'This exhibition has helped me a lot,' he said. 'I have had people talking to me in the last few days who would usually cross the street to avoid me. I am happy and proud that these people are interested in me.' Batmanghelidjh was not the only person to miss the launch of the exhibition: not a single parent turned up to see what their children had accomplished. But disturbing as the exhibits are ― canvases smeared with the red paint of self-harm, black lifesize figures crouching in even blacker corners, and a video installation with a voiceover of a 14-year-old boy describing how he reported his friend's parents to the police for pimping their 13-year-old daughter ― the children had created worse. 'I have not included the most shocking pieces,' said Batmanghelidjh. 'I have been very careful to leave the public some thinking room so we confront but do not traumatise and repulse them. More than anything else, I wanted people to go away from this exhibition able to think clearly.' Batmanghelidjh founded Kids Company nine years ago to help the children but now she realises she needs to force society to see beyond the labels slapped on them. 'I have been so fed up by the children being described according to adult convenience that I wanted to create something where they actually showed what it was like for them,' said Batmanghelidjh. 'I wanted to make adults realise what criminals they are for taking away these children's childhoods.' 'I decided the Tate would be the most prestigious place [for the exhibition] and pursued them for a year before they would agree. They took a great risk with us because they didn't know what they were going to get.'
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