For September 2021, we have three commissioned artists for The Show Windows with the theme of peace, pause and play.
Show Windows on display currently:
ONE Creative, produced by RIBA West Midlands, The Botanist, Unit 4, Cathedral Lanes Shopping Centre, Broadgate, Coventry CV1 1LL
Archived:
Friendly Forest by Sharon Walters, Belgrade Theatre, Corporation St, Coventry CV1 1GS
Jack’s Frogs - Dancing Frogs by Jack Foulkes, Old Ikea building, Croft Road, Coventry CV1 3JB
Friendly Forest by Sharon Walters at the Belgrade Theatre
This window, by Sharon, invites us to see the light in the dark. Inspired by walks in her local woodland with her family during 2020’s Covid-19 related lockdowns, Sharon shows us, through her paper cut outs, layers of this forest, inviting us to step through with her to feel a sense of peace, friendship and ourselves.
Within this paper cut portal to her ‘Friendly Forest’, a name coined by her daughter, we also see Sharon herself, a life size paper cut self portrait. The artist is there, part of herself left in the actual forest (the aura of her footprints) alongside this part of her in our (imagined) future of this forest and the ones we navigate each day - physically or emotionally. Sharon invites you to find peace in this work, in yourselves, your surroundings and in your everyday life.
Peace in perpetuity by ONE Creative environments at The Botanist
The Show Windows programme is excited to be working with RIBA West Midlands to produce four windows in Coventry for City of Culture. The second of these windows is by ONE Creative environments, an architect practice with a focus on joy, play and creating environments in both buildings and gardens, who are collaborating with artists Ruth Moilliet and Rachel Ella Taylor. Their large-scale window at The Botanist is a reflective installation exploring Coventry’s pre-existing icons related to peace, such as the phoenix and the Cathedral’s etched windows through a wreath style artwork featuring flowers that symbolise peace (the rose), healing, love and harmony - apple blossom, cosmos, the lotus flower and violets to name just a few.
Here, ONE Creative environments invites audiences to think about peace and the contrasts it brings through hope, as represented in equal measures, through the symbols used to visualise a cycle of growth, fragmentation and rebirth that is characteristic of every living thing in the natural world.
Jacks Frogs by Jack Foulkes
‘Jack’s Frogs’ was dreamt up by artist Jack Foulkes when he was told that the River Sherbourne in Coventry was to be uncovered. Jack imagined that, when the River was opened up, hundreds of frogs would leap out and jump around the city. Now, he is working to make that a reality via a series of works, with only part of the story exhibited here. This piece depicts the frog cycle, from frogspawn and tadpole to froglet and frog, all dancing together.
Jack is a young, local artist with Down's Syndrome who has been working with Imagineer and Open Theatre for a number of years. In that time, Jack has developed his project, Jack’s Frogs, which has grown substantially over the years.
With Coventry Business Improvement District and the Royal Institute of British Architects
Following a year where we have mainly been gazing out of our windows, we are now inviting you to look in with this programme of ambitious window installations designed by local, UK based and international architects and artists.
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