The Commonwealth Games are taking place in Birmingham this year between 28 July – 8 August. The cultural festival for the games will run alongside it, allowing Birmingham to present its distinctive cultural heritage to an audience of 2.5million. 

Heritage is a golden thread that runs through and between every event, project and idea.

Martin Green CBE, Chief Creative Officer of the 2022 Commonwealth Games

The Birmingham 2022 Festival has been made possible thanks to National Lottery funding. Together, The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England have pledged over £6million to support the programme.

Cultural heritage highlights

Here are our top five picks of shows, exhibitions and art installations from the upcoming programme.

Wondrous Stories

A spectacular open-air show will mark the launch of the Birmingham 2022 Festival. The large-scale show will take place in Centenary Square, inspired by the stories of Birmingham from past, present and future.  

From City of Empire to City of Diversity: A Visual Journey

This exhibition is commissioned by South Asian arts charity Sampad, the Library of Birmingham, and the University of Birmingham. It will take viewers on a visual journey through Birmingham’s history, using images drawn from the Library of Birmingham’s important photographic collections. This will be alongside personal reflections on migration and settlement.

Time Travel Tram

Using the West Midlands Metro Tram Route, passengers will be transported back in time using 3D visuals. It will be accompanied by a soundtrack created by musicians from the West Midlands.

Georgia Tucker - Fluitō

Fluitō will be an outdoor public art installation, where visitors can enter two large sculptural cubes, one within another. Through the use of sound and an immersive experience, the sculpture invites the viewer to consider water inequality and ocean pollution within Commonwealth countries.

Hew Locke – Foreign Exchange 

Birmingham’s city centre sculpture of Queen Victoria will be reinterpreted by acclaimed British-Guyanese artist Hew Locke. His past work explores colonial and post-colonial power, through modification of existing artefacts such as coats of arms, trophies and public statuary. The artist’s interest in the power of statues originated from his childhood in Guyana where he passed a sculpture of Queen Victoria every day on the way to school.

Martin Green CBE, Chief Creative Officer of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, said: “The festival is led by artists and a collision of beauty, community, participation, diversity and inclusion. Heritage is a golden thread that runs through and between every event, project and idea.”

Visit the Birmingham 2022 Festival website for more details on the programme.

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