Community Connections - bringing art, heritage and storytelling into inner-city Birmingham

10 years ago Soul City Arts was regularly delivering street-art tours in the Sparbrook and Small Heath area. A range of people such as Interfaith leaders, school groups and professional leadership groups were taken on our unique guided tours on a bus. These groups wanted to learn about the actual people of the city. Soul City Arts was offering them the opportunity to step into diverse neighbourhoods to understand a people through art, food and faith.

We are relaunching another iteration of those tours with Community Connections. Street-art painted by Mohammed Ali will form the basis of the the tours, along with community figures and storytellers along the way to share community experiences with participants.

We are in discussion with the running tour group Run of a Kind, to explore running versions of these tours.

Birmingham is celebrated for its diversity with many languages spoken in the city, however do we ever really get a chance to venture into each others neighbourhoods? We barely even speak to our neighbours! Community Connections strives to achieve that real social interaction that we all know is lacking in the city.

We've been running community connections for over 10 years.

In an increasingly polarised and now socially distanced society, how do we connect with one another

Society drives further wedges between us, as we becoming more and more insular.

Our devices have us glued to their screens, and forget the simple act of engaging with fellow human beings. How do we nurture dialogue and engagement with total strangers? How do we encourage people to step into each others neighbourhoods and get an insight into one another’s lives?  Well we have been doing this for over 10 years, and now we aim to step up the pace – quite literally.

At the end of the visits, Mohammed Ali will be hosting groups to his studio to have an in-depth conversation about the tour, and things that have been heard and seen.   During the Covid19 period, we are currently delivering such sessions on zoom only, but that will be changing in the near future as we transition into the next phase!

It's time to get a window into each others lives

Get in touch and connect with us.

Get in touch if you are interested in organising a group visit across Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath, Small Heath or any other local areas.

The time is now. It’s time for us to connect properly.