Artist Tim Mills presents photographic outcomes co-created with communities on The Burges.

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Artist Tim Mills presents photographic outcomes co-created with communities on The Burges, during his one year Picturing High Streets Residency. The installation at the Coventry Transport Museum is part of the legacy of a multifaceted project.

A third of the shops on the Burges are occupied by fast-food restaurants and takeaways, with bicycle delivery riders forming a significant community of people that provide food courier services throughout the city. Coventry has a distinguished and unique bicycle manufacturing heritage. From the first velocipedes built in 1868, the city went on to become the home of the British cycle industry and at one time produced the greatest output of cycles in the world.

Tim Mills has explored the history of this industry whilst involving the delivery riders on The Burges to produce a contemporary portrait that highlights their lives and work. The project includes stories of migration and of refugees in relation to Coventry’s role as a city of peace, reconciliation and sanctuary, interpreted in the photographs.

The installation that can be seen at Coventry Transport Museum relates to the themes embedded during Tim’s Picturing High Streets Residency: exploring industries that defined the city of the past and those that shape it today; examining ideas of arrivals, departures and transience; and working with an important community of people that provide goods and services in the area.

Picturing High Streets is a three year project by Historic England and Photoworks to create a contemporary portrait of England’s high streets, part of Historic England’s government-funded High Streets Heritage Action Zone scheme.

GRAIN Projects is the lead regional partner on Picturing High Streets delivering projects in Coventry, Stoke on Trent and Walsall.