Welcome to Coventry

The Welcome to Coventry sign is a collaborative community textile piece, developed by artists; Luisa Freitas and Charis Esther on behalf of Coventry City Council and in partnership with Avanti West Coast.

This project was one of a series of art commissions being managed by the Creative Giants, contributing to the Coventry Station masterplan and the wider Coventry City of Culture 2021 celebrations.

In January 2021 we were commissioned to create a ‘Welcome to Coventry’ sign for the new railway station building that was being developed alongside the existing railway station. As Coventry train station expects to see over 7.5 million passengers pass through, the purpose of the sign was to act as a symbolic ‘welcome’ to all those arriving via train, from the residents of the city.

Our proposal for the new sign was to create a collaborative community textile piece made by the residents of the City of Coventry. We contacted a number of creative groups from across the city to design and make embroidered and collaged images to be placed in the sign as a decorative backdrop. Each image was to represent the participants and their personal stories or their relationship with the city, thus representing the city via its citizens.

As the project took place during the Covid-19 lockdown, we designed a series of online workshops to support the participants with the making process of their designs, teaching them hand sewing and collage techniques. In order to ensure accessibility to as many people as possible, we created textile packs that contained all the materials and tools needed to create their designs. These were completed by the participants in the workshops and over a series of months then, posted back to us for the final collation.

Once all the art pieces had been collated together we took them to Kevin Tidbury of the Bearded Joiner, who created the frame and text for the sign. Kevin sealed the embroideries in a clear resin, preserving them for prosperity for years to come and placed the text on top which reads ‘Welcome to Coventry’.

The finished sign was delivered to the station in March 2022 and can be viewed on the first floor of the new station building, close to the Warwick Road exit.

We want to say a big thank you to all the participants that took part in making the images for the sign. Altogether 339 participants took part in the workshops and represented adults and children from across the city, including participants from:

Arty-Folks

Chat Central

Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre

Creative Kindness and Friends

Foleshill Creates

Girlguiding Coventry South

Men's Shed

Myton Hospice

NOW Network

Phoenix Stitchers

Radford Primary Academy

Sidney Stringer Primary Academy

Warwick University

The Weaver's House

Young Carers

Many of the participants shared stories behind the meaning of their designs, you can read these on our instagram @welcometocoventrysign. You can also view a selection of the designs via the gallery if you download the Smartify app.