Images of our community

In central Bristol, many examples of positive communal art - murals, mosaics, photographs and pictures – pass unnoticed but provide a subliminal message of togetherness.

In 2005-06, we ran two community exhibitions featuring the work of local artists. With both exhibitions, we wanted to stimulate appreciation of how much central Bristol’s diverse communities have in common. The great advantage of using a visual medium that it avoids the issue of limited language and literacy, and the art can be understood and enjoyed by all. We specifically wanted to take the art into the community – health waiting rooms, leisure centres, supermarkets, schools – to people who might not choose to visit galleries and exhibition spaces.

Communication = community (November 05) was a photographic exhibition curated by local artist Nyika Omowale to celebrate the diversity of our community, highlighting the positive connection between individuals of different ages and genders, and from different cultural and faith groups in our area. By bringing out the similarities between people of different backgrounds, rather than focusing on the differences, we hoped to build understanding of our common concerns and shared interests.

Different faiths – shared community (March 06) recognises the wide range of peoples and faiths living in central Bristol. A multi-faith installation by local artist Gloria Ojulari-Sule wove together images and symbols of different faiths, including glimpses of the interiors of various faith venues – mosques, temples, churches (rarely visited by people outside of a particular faith group). An photographic exhibition by Mark Simmonds and Jan Pemberton documented the lives of families from different faith groups.