1000 Words for Belonging: community mosaics in Redbridge, East London.
In 2024, Artyface was commissioned to make three new community mosaics in Redbridge, East London. The mosaics were commissioned by the ‘1000 Words for Belonging’ project; a community arts project produced by writer and teacher Neela Doležalová and based at Gearies Primary School in Gants Hill.
‘1000 Words for Belonging’ is a multilingual arts project, exploring what it means to ‘belong’. Over one year, all of the Year 6 students at Gearies Primary School worked with East London artists to explore this concept of ‘belonging’ through playwrighting, poetry and visual art. As part of the project, Year 6 students created their own ‘multilingual dictionary of belonging’, collecting words and phrases from within the school community. They also made plans for how best to share this dictionary with the world. The students wanted the words and phrases they had collected to be visible and out in the streets.
‘1000 Words for Belonging’ approached Artyface mosaic artist, Maud Milton, to see if the dictionary could be given a permanent life in ceramic. Thanks to public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the dictionary has now been embedded into three new public mosaics. Students engraved and stamped the words from their dictionary into tiles, creating a stunning legacy for the project around Gants Hill.
The first mosaic can be found outside Gants Hill Library (‘You Belong Here’), the second mosaic is outside Gearies Primary School (‘You Can Feel at Home Here’), and location of the third mosaic (‘You Are Welcome Here’) is soon to be announced. Between the three mosaics there are over 30 languages engraved or embossed in the tiles; from Korean to Twi, and from Urdu to Braille. How many of the languages can you recognise?
The words and phrases in the mosaics also weave together to make a living, collective poem. The poem can be found in a poetry book written by the students at Gearies Primary School called ‘100 Poems for Belonging’. You can download a digital version of this poetry book for free here, or borrow it in hard-copy when you visit Gants Hill Library.
The mosaics have since been captured by photographers Craig Bernard and Dimeji G. If you are around Gants Hill, please send us your mosaic photos!
“Working with Maud, her team, the students, the teachers at Gearies Primary School and the staff at Gants Hill library, has been a joy beginning to end. The mosaics bring me so much joy. I always find a new detail in each mosaic, no matter how many times I study them. I am so proud of how hard the students worked and so thankful to everyone in the community who helped us translate words for our ‘multilingual dictionary of belonging’. I am not sure how many other multilingual mosaics there are out there, but I like to imagine that these three beautiful mosaics are part of a growing collection.”
Neela Doležalová, writer and teacher, Gearies Primary School
Quotes from students:
“I felt excited as I’ve never done this before”
“I want it [the mosaics] to make people feel like they belong, and must not feel uncomfortable here. They can also feel at home here.”
“I felt really proud when making the tiles because I knew that my work would be put up in public for people to admire.”
“I enjoyed when we made clay tiles as I never felt clay before.”
“I enjoyed making mosaics because I like learning new things.”
“[I enjoyed] the clay tiles, because me and my friend got to write in Portuguese.“
You can follow the ‘1000 Words for Belonging’ project on Instagram: @words4belonging.