Image of man with a white beard and a wooly hat. He's sitting down with a small white dog on his lap.
Graham and Willow by Vanley Burke

We’re touring six neighbourhood ‘Live’ sites/parks as part of the Commonwealth Games 2022 Festival Programme. We’ll have exhibitions, activities and conversations as part of ‘Home-Back-Home’ during an action-packed fortnight. We hope there’s a site near you and you can drop by, say hello and join us on this special occasion.

We’ll have artist Ben Jones joining us for selected dates extending our ‘How Were You?’ project into ‘How Are We?’, you might be lucky enough to get one of his fantastic portraits done and get added to our ever-growing documentation of everyday Birmingham folk and their stories and experiences. We’ll also have international ‘artist of play’, Anthea Moys with us at Oaklands on the 5th/6th August.

We’ll be exhibiting work from young people who regularly attend Art Club, including sculptures, drawings and reflections on ‘home-back-home’ and there’ll be arts activities to join in with.

It’ll also be the first outing for our ‘Back Home’ photographic and story project. We invited people to get a portrait with legendary photographer Vanley Burke and a short interview about their ‘back home’. You’ll be able to access the stories using simple QR code AR through your smartphone, while enjoying Vanley’s portraits.

Dates and places:

The sites will be open early afternoon to evening, coinciding with Commonwealth Games times

  • 28th/29th July  Farnborough Fields, Castle Vale, B35 7LF 
  • 30th/31st July Sparkhill Park, Stratford Rd, B11 4LX
  • 1st/2nd August Edgbaston Reservoir, B16 0EN 
  • 3rd/4th August Oaklands Recreational Ground, 476 Hob Moor Rd, B25 8UB
  • 5th/6th August Handsworth Park, Holly Road, Handsworth, B20 2BY
  • 7th/8th August Ward End Park 145 Ward End Park Rd, Birmingham B8 2XA

Most timings are 12-8pm on the first day at each site and 11-7pm on the second, except the first day at Castle Vale which is 3-10.30pm, to coincide with the opening ceremony.

Hopefully, there’ll be one near you and we’ll see you there. Otherwise, we’ll be touring the work to other sites in the city later in the year, watch this space.