A new artwork for Stratford Shopping Centre

Our public art projects tend to come from a wider piece of engagement where we are out and about talking to local people about what they would like to see change in their area. This is exactly what happened when in October 2025 we were asked to work with Stratford Shopping Centre to capture the views of shoppers and people who visit the centre on a regular basis.

The Stratford Centre was built in 1974, and while it's a busy destination with a good mix of essential shops for local people, there are things that visitors agree could be improved upon:

Visitors also mentioned that the 'South Mall' is an underused space. Due to empty shop units, visitors don't really have a reason to go to this part of the shopping centre and they would like to see this area transformed.

South Mall mural

Some of the asks will take a little longer to achieve but we were asked to look at ways to co-design a large mural on a wall/blocked off exit at the end of the South Mall area, where, currently there is a large and outdated CGI on the wall. This will be installed in conjunction with some new seating and planting to change the vibe of this part of the centre.

Approach to co-design

Our first task when co-designing a piece of artwork is coming up with a prompt that creates an emotional and creative response and we weren’t sure that locals would have strong feelings to the question 'What makes Stratford Shopping Centre special?'. With that in mind we decided to open the question up to talk about Stratford as a whole, at the same time asking people to create a pattern and drawing in response to the question. We knew that the pattern making would allow us to lift particular pieces of a design and include them in our final artwork so participants can really see their contribution.

Asking 'What makes Stratford special to you?' gave us answers like 'Home', 'Community', 'Belonging', 'Diversity'

Approach to artworking

Once we have collected lots of different artwork the challenge is finding a way to adapt the work of many people into one cohesive design. Using the method of pre-cut paper tiles in a limited palette meant that there was enough flexibility for people to enjoy the activity and create something unique, while looking like part of a family of artworks.

We came up with the idea of making something that resembles a 'community patchwork', using the words and patterns people created in response to 'What makes Stratford special to you?'

Watch this space for the final artwork!