Celebrating the 10th anniversary of Swansea as a City of Sanctuary

City of Sanctuary is a national movement committed to building a welcoming culture of hospitality, especially for refugees seeking sanctuary from war and persecution. To celebrate, in 2020 local artists and asylum-seekers and refugees co-created a series of public art works on the theme around welcome, home and safety. These serve as a legacy of the 10th anniversary and show how proud Swansea is to be a City of Sanctuary. Swansea artist, Mary Hayman, as part of her community artwork with Glynn Vivian gallery, is supplying local people with a hexagon of fabric which they decorate at home to celebrate City of Sanctuary. These will be incorporated into a canopy for the gallery garden and possibly also flags or bunting. Hanan Beko, a local tailor, is working on the cutting, hemming and sewing together. 

This material is part of the Covid Chronicles from the Margins project, funded by The Open University and the International Institute of Social Studies in the Hague. The project aims to highlight the impact of the pandemic on refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. 

This item can also be found on our website.