WELCOME - A Sculpture for Alexandra Hospital, Redditch
On 20th March 2026, the sculpture WELCOME was unveiled at the entrance to Alexandra Hospital in Redditch. For us it marked the end of a project that had lived for months not in sketchbooks, but in pasta machines, old drinks cartons and community engagement sessions, before finally becoming part of the everyday landscape of the hospital.
The project was developed by Reimagine Redditch in partnership with Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Charity and Arts in Redditch, with funding from Arts Council England. The aim was simple but important: to create an artwork that could make the hospital entrance feel more welcoming for the many people who arrive there each day.
Hospitals are emotionally complex places. People pass through the doors for many different reasons — to work, to visit loved ones, to receive treatment — and that first moment of arrival can quietly shape the experience of everything that follows.
When we first visited the site it quickly became clear that where the sculpture sat would matter as much as what it was. The original proposed location was within a green area beside the entrance. After spending time watching how people moved through the space, we felt the work risked disappearing into the background and missing the main flow of people entering the building.
Working closely with the commissioning team, we proposed an alternative location along the main pedestrian route into the hospital. Placing the sculpture here meant it could be encountered naturally as people approached the building, acting as a small threshold or pause before stepping inside.
Like most of our projects, the sculpture didn’t begin with a fixed design. Instead it began with people.
In October and November 2025 we ran a series of creative sessions with hospital staff and members of the Woodrow community. Over the course of those sessions over 70 people took part, bringing their ideas, stories and creativity into the process.
We designed the workshops so that anyone could participate, regardless of their confidence with art. Many people arrive convinced they can’t draw or make anything creative, so we try to build processes that remove that pressure entirely.
For this project we used a simple printmaking technique using plates made from upcycled Tetrapak drinks cartons. Participants carved into the surface of the packaging and printed their designs using a second-hand pasta machine that we adapted as a portable printing press.
It’s a wonderfully simple process. Slightly messy, a bit playful, and very forgiving. Within minutes people were experimenting and sharing ideas with each other across the tables.
The materials themselves reflected how we try to work more broadly. Sustainability sits at the centre of our practice, so using reused materials and simple tools felt like the right approach for the sessions.
As the workshops unfolded certain ideas kept appearing again and again in both the prints and the conversations around them. There was a strong sense of community within the hospital, with staff often describing their workplace as feeling “like a village”. Images of hands, circles, hearts and linked forms appeared repeatedly. People talked about teamwork, connection, friendship, care and recovery.
Gradually those themes began to shape the direction of the sculpture.
Throughout the engagement process we reflected on each workshop as we went along, evaluating the sessions and adapting them in response to what participants were responding to. The project also worked alongside an external evaluator who helped capture feedback and reflect on how people experienced the process.
Every print created during the sessions was photographed and documented. Rather than allowing those contributions to disappear once the sculpture was finished, we brought them together into a digital exhibition which will be shown on screens within the hospital so that every participant’s work remains visible as part of the project.
The wider process was also documented by the project’s filmmaker, capturing the workshops, conversations and the making of the sculpture itself.
In many ways the way the project unfolded began to mirror the ideas emerging from the sessions — individuals contributing small pieces that gradually came together to form something larger.
The finished sculpture consists of eight carved oak hands, each engraved with imagery translated directly from the prints created during the workshops. The hands themselves are based on the real hands of hospital staff, grounding the sculpture in the people who work within the building every day.
From most viewpoints the hands appear as separate forms rising from the ground. But when you stand directly in front of the sculpture they align visually to form a circle.
It’s a subtle moment that only becomes clear when you pause and look for it.
That shift became an important metaphor for the project: the idea that individuals, when working together, create something far stronger than any one person alone.
The oak used for the sculpture has its own story as well. The timber came from a tree sourced through C&H Tree Services that had to be felled due to disease and would otherwise have been cut for firewood. Reusing the wood allowed us to give the material a second life while keeping the environmental impact of the project low.
Sustainability shaped other parts of the process too. We travelled to the workshops and meetings in our electric vehicle and tried, wherever possible, to reuse materials and minimise waste.
Alongside the sculpture sits a solar-powered audio post, narrated by a member of hospital staff. The recording tells the story of the artwork and includes participants whose designs are engraved into the sculpture explaining the meaning behind their work.
Hearing those voices beside the sculpture brings the whole process full circle.
The unveiling on 20th March brought many of the people involved back together again. Staff members who had taken part in the sessions stood beside the sculpture looking for their own designs in the engravings, while others listened to the audio post and recognised familiar voices.
Watching people move around the sculpture, pause, and slowly notice the circle forming from the hands was a quiet but satisfying moment for us.
WELCOME now stands at the entrance to Alexandra Hospital as a shared gesture of care. Each hand represents an individual contribution, but together they form a single circle — a reflection of the teamwork and community that underpin the hospital itself.
For us, the project has been a reminder that the most meaningful public artworks often begin simply by listening. The sculpture may now be finished, but the voices and ideas that shaped it remain embedded in the wood.
