You Belong Here: Public Art

Artur Conka
Husband and Wife with Child, Newport, Wales, 2023

Photographer and film director Artur Conka’s work focuses on the plight of the Roma Gypsies and Travellers in Europe. A Roma person himself, Conka was born in Košice, Slovakia, in the impoverished Roma district Luník IX, and travelled around Europe with his family before eventually settling in England in 1998 when he was eight years old.

Conka feels that it is important to give the Roma a voice, as they have so long been voiceless, without influence or consideration by those in power.

Conka currently works as a documentary photographer. His works are currently on show in Wales at an exhibition called Roma in Newport.

Hank Willis Thomas
Tomorrow, The United States of Africa, 2023

Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist working with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture.

In a  series of quilts, Willis Thomas reimagined the flags of the states of Africa as source material for his ongoing quilt practice. A design from this series flies as flags on the roof of Royal Festival Hall. 

In this work, significant national symbols and colours are fragmented and rearranged into new constellations, using the folkloric quilt patterns of the American Underground Railroad as a guide.

Olivia Plender
Memorial for Sylvia Pankhurst, 2024

Olivia Plender is an artist based in Stockholm and London, whose work is inspired by social movements and their histories, and the relationships between gender, power and authority.

Using intricate drawings suspended in mobile form, Plender creates a temporary memorial to Sylvia Pankhurst, whose name is well-documented in social and political history for her involvement with the campaign to win votes for women in Britain. 

Less celebrated, however, are Pankhurst's later campaigns against fascism and imperialism, and the influence of her socialist feminist ideas on the formation of a welfare state in Britain.

Suzie Larke
Missing Something from Unseen series, 2020 – 2024

Photographer Suzie Larke’s new logic-defying images aim to spark conversations about mental wellbeing.

Collaborating with individuals and mental-wellbeing groups over three years on this project, Larke observed a recurring theme: the profound impact of belonging, or its absence, on mental wellness.

Larke says: ‘The essence of belonging is like the invisible thread that weaves through the fabric of our mental wellbeing. It's not just a fleeting desire or a passing fancy; it's a fundamental need within us. When we feel connected, valued, and accepted by others, it nourishes our sense of self-worth and contributes significantly to our overall happiness.’

Original commission by Unlimited.

Yinka Ilori 
Forever, 2024

Yinka Ilori is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer whose bold visual language draws on his British-Nigerian heritage, and on Nigerian parables and verbal traditions, to convey new narratives through contemporary design.

The artwork Forever was inspired by Tavares Strachan’s installation You Belong Here, and influenced by Ilori’s own experience of the ‘in-betweens’ of his heritage, which often led to a feeling of not belonging anywhere.

In this work, symbols of love invite the viewers into this space and cocoon them to feel protection through belonging. No one can take this away. Forever.