Handsworth Visionaries

I had my likeness cast on a coin as part of a project to celebrate people who had made an outstanding contribution to the Handsworth community.

Two artists, Chris Poolman and Elizabeth Rowe, took up a residency at Soho House Museum Birmingham in 2014 funded by Arts Council England, with a brief to encourage the local community to make visits to the museum. They came up with the idea of identifying what they called ‘Handsworth Visionaries’ and the names of 15 of people suggested by community leaders who had made valuable contributions to Handsworth were put forward. An online vote was then set up and the three ‘visionaries’ with the highest number of votes were selected to have a coin cast with their likeness on it. These coins, minted in Birmingham, were then distributed to local schools who used them when they visited the museum.

Following the online vote three winners emerged: Mykal Brown from Wassifa Sound System, Bhai Sahib Mohinder Ahluwali of Guru Nanak Nishkam Sikh temple, and myself, founder of Handprint educational publishers.

At the launch event held on May 23, 2015 at Soho House Museum, the former residence of the pioneer industrialist Matthew Boulton, the winners talked about their work and coins were handed out to those attending. Schoolchildren from Handsworth schools were also involved in the project and they had entered a competition for designing artwork for the reverse side of the coins.