Commonground is a multi-purpose art space at FarGo Village. It has a café, a design store showcasing work from local artists and it hosts exhibitions and puts on live music events.
I got myself a flat white and a brownie from Jon, who was manning the coffee machine at the café. The coffee’s microfoam palm was on-point and the brownie delicious. I mentioned about liking the stem begonias near the till and Jon said cuttings exchanges happen from time to time. The venue’s sky lights allow for a profusion of plants – philodendrons, monstera and begonias were all over the place.
Kate runs Commonground together with Jon. She is also an artist, printmaker and photographer.
Jon became busy serving other customers so I talked about my project to Kate.
She took me around the venue and showed me the print machine at Commonground and said that later on in the evening local DJs will be performing their sets. . She said Commonground is somewhere where creative skills are learned and where collaborations can take place and where print making workshops happen.
For [25] Pockets of [Coventry], she gave me a portion of a bespoke print work she was commissioned to complete for Telegraph hotel. She recounted that she had done 170 prints for the hotel. These are now hanging in the hotel’s bedrooms.
She told me the photograph exhibition on the wall was loaned to Commonground by Goldsmiths University. It is titled ‘Migrating Dreams and Nightmares,’ from the book ‘A Seventh Man’ by John Berger and Jean Mohr and curated into an exhibition by the artist Antoinette Brown, in collaboration with Nirmal Puwar. It speaks to the experiences, and hopes, fears and dreams of refugees and migrant labour – the invisible faces and stories which help to build the things around us and care for the things we take for granted.
Kate then sent me to see Talking Birds at the Daimler Powerhouse.
Kate at Commonground is the 25th pocket of Coventry and the frame is all filled up and so everything can now be assembled.
Artrospektive 