Residents turned out on Saturday to celebrate the unveiling of a new piece of co-created public art in Kirkby Shopping Centre.

The mosaic artwork, made up of hundreds of ceramic hearts, images and stories, was created by internationally known artist and mosaicist Carrie Reichardt working with communities from across Knowsley. It was produced by local community arts organisation Heart of Glass and supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England.

The project, entitled Strong Women of Knowsley, gave residents, community groups and schoolchildren in Knowsley a chance to make and decorate their own heart shaped clay tile, celebrating a woman/women who has/have inspired them. All 540 hearts were incorporated into a large-scale permanent artwork featuring the words of mathematician and writer Ada Lovelace: “May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.”

A smaller artwork for St Marie’s Catholic Primary School, dedicated to the school community’s strong women was unveiled earlier in the week.

Angharad Williams, Head of Creative People and Places Programme at Heart of Glass says:
“Through this project we set out to address the lack of women, and particularly working class women, captured in public art. On Saturday we got to see people’s emotional reactions as the artwork that they’d helped to create was unveiled, featuring hundreds of tributes to aunties, mums, sisters, grandmas and local women. We’re so grateful to the community for welcoming us and so thankful to artist Carrie Reichardt and all the team for making this joyful project happen.”