Crackingly good eggs
As part of our Easter celebrations and to mark the SportAccord conference, local artist Katie O’Sullivan has helped us bring three utterly unique eggs to Paradise.
The SportAccord international sporting conference at the ICC on 10-11 April will bring thousands of delegates and exhibitors from the sports sector from around the world into our part of the city.
As artwork about Birmingham itself, the eggs have been designed with input from pupils at two of our local schools in Ladywood, namely Nelson Primary School and St.George’s Church of England Primary School as well as the Ladywood Community Project.
Katie says that she enjoyed working with the pupils who put in a lot of hard work and whose ideas covered everything from the local and global environment, to history and sport. You can view the children’s designs below.
St.George’s Church of England Primary School Gallery
Much of the thematic and specific ideas for the eggs came directly from the pupils themselves.
The first egg is about Birmingham’s heritage, including the Bullring and our industrial past, the second is about local sport and includes lawn tennis (invented in Birmingham in 1874) and league football (also started in Birmingham in 1888), and the third is about caring for wildlife and the environment (including life on land, in the sea and in the air), as well as the initiatives in place around Paradise, such as the bee hives and herb garden.
Katie’s handiwork has helped bring all of this to life with her stunning artwork across the eggs, making them not just colourful and accessible, but symbolic of the hard work that has gone into them and the hard working communities across the city they help to represent.
As a big ‘thank you’ to the schools and the pupils for their ideas and hard work, they have each received a special gift, while the groups have been given gardening related items, including benches and plants for their grounds.
The pupils will also visit the Paradise bees and meet our resident beekeeper this Easter. An unveiling tea party will be hosted by Albert’s Schloss for everyone who participated in the workshops, and give the pupils the chance to see the finished eggs in situ.
Be sure to catch the eggs on display in Centenary Way until the end of April.