Print artist Annie Nicholson, aka Fandangoe Kid, who focuses on developing visual narratives as a means of communicating stories, ran a series of workshops with students exploring what being or becoming a part of Bristol University meant to them, what their ambitions were for joining the University community.
The projects resulted in two large-scale vinyl posters, Belonging and Home, which were initially located in Senate House and are now in the publicly accessible Students’ Union building.
Running workshops and creating large scale artworks that reflect the communal voice of the students at Bristol University, creates a possibility to really hear the needs of your young people.
You are providing a well needed platform for engagement that could change many lives and have a ripple effect amongst the student community. Everyone wants to feel part of something and everyone wants to feel heard. By creating a channel and outlet for communication about traditionally taboo subject matters such as mental health, you are dispensing with the old and breaking the stigma. More essentially, you are providing a safe space for young people to come together and voice their collective hopes, fears and realities, things that unite us and make us all human.
The artworks that we hope to install across campus will reflect this unity and sense of humanity and will serve as a daily reminder that those attending Bristol University are part of something, a real community whose members listen to one another and support one another.
These creative workshops about notions of community and belonging were part of the Make this Yours campaign: an engagement framework for Campus Heart. The campaign created opportunities for students, staff and our local communities to help shape the space and services in at the centre of the University, at the Campus Heart, the University’s development programme for the services and buildings on and around Tyndall Avenue.
Belonging (2018)
Fandangoe Kid ran two workshops at a Welcome Fair on the theme of Belonging plus one on World Mental Health Day at the indoor sports centre, to explore the role of movement and mental health. A large scale text based artwork was produced, inspired by the workshops and the discussions. The work is the artist’s ‘understanding of what has unfolded with my interactions with the people involved, aiming to capture the spirit as fully as possible’.
Home (2018)
Fandangoe Kid subsequently worked with a diverse group of students to create a piece looking at the idea of Home, developing a collective narrative to tie ideas together. Annie said ‘the piece intends to bind and unite, and create a sense of universality through our shared sense of human experience, no matter what our respective experience of home’.
Please note the final artwork included blue text on a pink background, as seen in the in-situ image above. The image below shows an early draft.
Further resources
Media articles
- Meet the print artist plastering the streets of London with bold messages that deal with life, love, and grief (Mashabe)
- Fandangoe Kid is the print artist addressing mental health, grief and love (Metro)
- Speaking with East London-Based Artist Annie Nicholson aka Fandangoe Kid in Red Hook, Brooklyn (Street Art NYC)
- A Tale of Empowerment | The Fandangoe Kid (Peckham Levels)
