Coventry Made Me: creativity, identity and place

This rapid response project investigated how the city of Coventry and its various places have influenced the identity of creative individuals of the city, and acts as the inspiration for new work by the artist Mary Courtney.

We asked artists and creatives, both amateur and professional, about ways in which Coventry and specific locations in the city had influenced their creative identities. The collaborating artist explored these issues directly with several Coventry artists. After analysing response data from an online survey, the researchers used the film work as an additional data set to further explore place and identity issues in the context of academic literature on these themes.

The emerging themes suggest that Coventry has had a marked impact on the identity and creativity of respondents. Many physical locations and iconic buildings in the city appear to have influenced Coventry creatives – there are some notable locations that feature frequently, but there is also a ‘long tail’ of less obvious places with significant personal connotations. In addition, respondents also noted that Coventry has given them qualities such as strength and resilience, pride in the City, and a sense of community and belonging which has influenced them and their creative work.