Creative Connections Coventry
In 2021, Creative Connections connected young people with contemporary artists to create new artwork that explored people and local places.
Taking inspiration from the collections at the National Portrait Gallery and the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, artist Maryam Wahid worked with students from Barr’s Hill School to explore and celebrate Coventry people. A series of portraits of the students by Maryam Wahid were displayed alongside paintings and photographs from the National Portrait Galleries’ collections.
The exhibition presented portraits and inspirational stories of people associated with Coventry - including George Eliot, EM Forster, Philip Larkin, The Specials, Susan Hill, Sarah Siddons, Ellen Terry, Billie Whitelaw, John Piper and Mo Mowlam.
Creative Connections is part of the National Portrait Gallery’s transformational Inspiring People project which includes an extensive programme of nationwide activities, funded by The National Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund. These ambitious partnerships with museums, local community groups and schools aim to bring the Gallery closer to communities across the UK.
Maryam Wahid is an award-winning artist. Through photography she expresses the origins of the Pakistani community in her hometown of Birmingham by exploring her deeply rooted family history and the mass integration of migrants within the UK. Her work focuses on womanhood, the history of the South Asian community in Britain and the notion of home and belonging.
For Creative Connections Coventry, Wahid worked with Year 9 art students from Barr’s Hill School to explore and celebrate iconic people linked to Coventry. A series of creative workshops, discussions and photographic sessions led to the collaborative portraits displayed here.
Wahid’s Who Am I? series focusses on the identity of the next generation of Coventry. These fine art portraits were a reflection of the hopes, dreams and aspirations that these 13 and 14-year-old students at Barr’s Hill School had for themselves and for Coventry.
The students were drawn to particular people and poses in the works from the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, and Wahid used these connections as a guide to depicting the young people in their own portraits. For some students, the impact of the pandemic is portrayed, yet they still adopt poses of great pride.
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