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Together in Love and Courage

10th Mar 2022

Fandangoe Kid and Change Grow Live, St Helens have worked together to create a large-scale floor mural for St Helens town centre.

Project Details
Categories
  • Collectivity
Creative Team
  • Artist: Annie Nicholson
  • Collaborators: Change Grow Live St Helens
  • Producer: Angharad Williams & Rhyannon Parry
  • Project support: Emma Blackburn

Critically acclaimed artist Fandangoe Kid (aka Annie Nicholson) and Change Grow Live have worked together to create a striking new mural for St Helens town centre.

Entitled Together In Love And Courage, this bold and vibrant floor mural is the result of several weeks of social engagement with the incredible participants at CGL St Helens. Together, Fandangoe Kid explored themes of resilience and overcoming extreme adversity, alongside the role of community and the unique spirit of St Helens and its people. Gathering together the vast creative output from the participants alongside transcripts of group conversations, Annie developed a collective voice which fed into the design and narrative of the mural.

Part of a series of public artworks platforming the work of women and LGBTQIA+ artists.

A group of women are sat around a table covered in art materials; paints, pencils, colourful paper and big white sheets. The women are all absorbed in painting on their own sheet and conversation together.
A paint palette is filled with multicoloured paints on top of a table. Someone is sat at the table working on a white piece of paper. On the paper the word hope is painted in green, yellow, orange and pink paint.
Annie Nicholson sits at a table with a big smile on her face. Next to her is a person wearing a colourful headband painting a rainbow on a piece of white paper. On the table are tubes of paint, coloured pencils, paper and other craft materials.
Two people painting a bold colourful mural on the ground.

Annie's partner, writer Lara Haworth, got involved too. With her help, Annie settled the mural's final words, which she felt best represented the amazing and unique spirit of the participants and acknowledged all that they had shared in the group sessions.

Annie says: "It has been a real honour to work with the group and amplify these powerful voices in the public realm in St Helens."Together in Love and Courage is part of our wider murals programme. After the huge success of last year’s murals by residents and Nomad Clan in the heart of Parr we have planned a series of new murals to transform several locations in St Helens.

Located on Foundry Street in St Helens town centre, this artwork is presented in partnership with St Helens Borough Council as part of their Welcome Back Fund programme. The mural will form the entrance to the new £1m events space and retail hub planned for the former Chalon Way car park site.

Visit

You'll find Together in Love and Courage at: 5 Market Street, St Helens WA10 1NE

About the artist

Annie Nicholson

Supported by

The project has received £20K of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund, specifically the Welcome Back Fund, as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. More information.

In collaboration with

Change Grow Live is a drug and alcohol service for adults aged 19+, families and carers in St Helens. They offer a wide range of support including one-to-one appointments and group work. As well as drugs and alcohol, they offer support with health and wellbeing mental health, criminal justice, domestic abuse and homelessness.