Local - Coventry Degree Show 2021

A series of special projects celebrating Coventry's City of Culture year in 2021.

The Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Coventry University has led cultural and creative innovation since its inception as Coventry College of Design in 1843. Now in the year of Coventry’s City of Culture, we have continued to develop our vibrant community engagement and create opportunities for students to be involved in this powerful and dynamic time for Coventry. Through university and faculty support, we have supported students in a range of exciting community collaborations, projects, dialogues and interactions across Coventry.

Our students have been instrumental in designing the volunteer uniform for City of Culture and have undertaken a Coventry Sketchbook project creating amazing narratives about their Coventry. Coventry Storytellers aims to capture life in Foleshill through cyanotype workshops and participants’ meaningful objects, which will be on display around Coventry's community spaces and our website and social media channels.

This selection of projects provides a glimpse into the student experience and activities at the beginning, during and beyond City of Culture celebrations.

Coventry Storytellers

Coventry storytellers is a student-led project funded by the city of culture. Ruby Nixon of our BA Hons Photography students is creating alternative image making workshops that encourage the use of the arts in local communities. Through participants visual object’s the project hopes to capture snap shots of life in the Foleshill community and exhibit them around Coventry.

The Coventry Sketchbook project

The Coventry Sketchbook project was devised to celebrate drawing as a universal form of communication. Since 2018 The School of Art & Design has (and still is) distributing 2021 sketchbooks across all wards of Coventry for anyone to take document, draw and doodle their Coventry leading up to and during City of Culture.

Moving Blue - The City of Culture Volunteer Uniform Competition

Art and Design Students were set a brief to design a uniform for the 5,000 strong volunteer team of City Hosts who are playing a central role supporting Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture. The challenge was to reflect the City of Culture brand and values, and create a distinctive, inclusive response that’s fit for purpose. Students from a wide range of courses took up the challenge, with three proposals eventually selected to inspire and inform the final uniform design. The work shown here is a selection of shortlisted and selected proposals.

Sejin Choi, Beyza Mert and Emily Morris’s work was selected to form the basis of uniform designs and the images are a selection of part of their submission.