Come along at 1.00pm on Sat 12th April to witness the unveiling of the mural, followed by a celebration in the John's Place gardens with refreshments, music, an exhibition and free copies of the Whitechapel Stories booklet to take away.

Come and see how the Sidney Street mural is taking shape. We've been working with local schools and community groups to gather ideas and inspiration for our Whitechapel heritage mural. This pop-up exhibition – at Tower Hamlets Town Hall and Watney Market Idea Store – is a chance to see the artworks that each of the four groups created, along with the working design for the mural

As the children at Blue Gate Fields Junior School painted fabric patterns, and and sketched coconuts and lemons, Julia Miranda zoomed in – by way of her visual minutes – to record the buzz around the table.

In our two mural development workshops at Blue Gate Fields Junior School, the children painted patterned fabrics and drew a harvest festival’s worth of fruit and veg. There was a real buzz around the table.

Overheard conversations and snippets from the InCommon inter-generational workshops at Sonali Gardens, captured in visual minutes by Julia Miranda.

We’ve had two lively and productive sessions with the InCommon inter-generational group at Sonali Gardens, working with children from St Mary & St Michael RC Primary School and older people from LinkAge Plus.

Our development workshop with students from Stepney All Saints School was artfully captured by Julia Miranda's visual minutes – which are peppered with overheard snippets of conversation.

We really enjoyed Frank Creber's recent mural development workshop with students from Stepney All Saints School at the Whitechapel Gallery. The session was focused on drawing bold forms that could then be developed into human figures.

With his first-hand experience of living in Whitechapel since childhood, we knew that Mohammed ‘Naz’ Nazrul would make an important contribution to the Mural Panel. Here, he explains a bit more about his background and how he found the mural selection process.

These fabulous visual minutes were created by Julia Miranda during our recent mural development workshop with local heritage enthusiasts. They really capture a sense of the session, with overheard conversations and ideas shared by the participants. From alphona folk art to pub tilework, cockney sparrows to Basil and Rose Henriques, and iron age dwellings to unexploded bombs – snippets and stories come together beautifully in Julia's minutes.

Throughout January and February 2025, artist Frank Creber is leading a series of mural development workshops with local schools, community groups and residents. The ideas generated during these workshops will feed into the mix and help shape up and refine the main mural design. And each workshop group also created a standalone artwork focused around a theme: heritage landmarks, creating characters, community connections, fabrics and food.

Born and bred East Ender, Loraine Myers – who lives around the corner from Sidney Street and serves on the John’s Place TRA Committee – is full of stories and snippets about local life. Here, she explains a bit more about her background, and her hopes for how the Sidney Street mural might provide a focus for the area.

We were pleased when Renata Rubnikowicz – a journalist and long-time resident of Sidney Street – agreed to join the Mural Panel. Here, she explains a bit more about her background, the experience of helping select the mural artist, and her hopes for what the mural might bring to the neighbourhood.

Richard Martin is Director of Participation at Whitechapel Gallery, where he oversees a creative learning programme for all ages featuring artistic commissions, residencies, festivals, lates, exhibition projects, talks, performances, workshops and screenings. https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/

We were really chuffed that he was able to join our Mural Panel; his expertise and insight were invaluable. Here, he explains a bit more about his background and how he found the mural selection process.

Drum roll please! We’re delighted to announce that Frank Creber has been chosen as the artist to create the Sidney Street mural. The Mural Panel reviewed all ten proposals in detail – there were oodles of good ideas in there, and beautiful visuals, so it was hard to whittle down – but after two long and constructive panel discussion sessions, and presentations from a shortlist of three artists, we decided on Frank.

Here’s our rather ugly wall (at the moment) with our beautiful Mural Panel members standing in front. We’ve made quite a bit of progress over recent months on the Whitechapel Stories (Sidney Street) mural project. Having crafted the brief and put a call-out to the mural painting world, we received ten proposals.

Taking a moment on the holiday weekend to celebrate a community and project dear to my heart: the Whitechapel Stories Mural for Sidney Street, funded by the The National Lottery Heritage Fund, as we launch the project website at www.whitechapelstories.org.

Thanks to Richard Wiltshire, the borough archivist, for hosting this morning's Whitechapel Stories session at Tower Hamlets Archives.

For our first session this morning, our Whitechapel Stories group ventured around the neighbourhood, using a range of old maps, photos, newspaper clippings and other historical resources to make sense of what we saw.

Sign up for the Whitechapel Stories proWe’re currently recruiting participants for the Whitechapel Stories project: an eight-week series of hands-on history workshops, guided walks, and online research sessions which will help us shape up ideas for the Sidney Street mural.