Reimagining a welcome space with artist José García Oliva
How can we make our spaces feel more open, inclusive, and human? How can policy reflect care, collaboration, and real change? This project aimed to explore these questions, avoid the jargon, and rethink policy-making creatively.
Led by Venezuelan artist José García Oliva, and developed in collaboration with the Metal team, trustees, and community partners in Liverpool, Peterborough, and Southend, this project explored what it really means to be welcoming.
Together, via a series of workshops, we reimagined what a ‘welcome’ space looks like – not just in words, but in action. José led the groups through a paper folding exercise asking us to fold a piece of A4 paper every time he asked a question, for example, fold every time someone’s body language or tone made you feel excluded or you felt the space prioritised certain people over others. The simplicity of folding allowed the conversation to take place, and with each crease, quiet stories emerged. The folding offered room for conversation, reflection, and the chance to truly see how spaces can either open up or close down to those within them.
José responded to the words, actions and reflections that emerged from each workshop by creating the doormat Welcome Isn’t a Doormat. The choice of object and material draws on his comments about institutional policies, suggesting that policies should be visible and accessible at the entrance of an institution. They are something to be used, walked on and eventually worn down by time and passage, which signals the need for them to be regularly reviewed and rewritten. As the doormat itself declares, “Bodies change, needs change, and cultures change”, and policies must change too. There’s one doormat for each of our front-door sites, with an additional ‘free’ doormat, to be used wherever our work takes us.
This project forms part of Artists for Future Policy , which invites artists to help shape how we work, how we connect, and how we imagine the future.
Contributing Artists
This work was produced in collaboration with: Abby Boak / Amber Merry / Andrea Cunningham / Camilla Thomas / Dora Colquhoun / Emma Mills / Fiona Cifaldi / George Maund / Hana Sayeed / Ilayda McIntosh / Jack Wilkin / Jon Davies / Kate Marsh / Laura Hensser / Madhu Manipatruni / Mariama Attah / Mary Pearson / Matthew Bradbury / Mia Jerome / Mithila Ramagavigan / Molly Nicholson / Nkechi Onuora / Philippa Stewart / Ruth Campbell-Ekins / Sarah Livermore / Susie Thornberry / Ulysses Alvarez
Run your own workshop – download the leaflet
To share the process José has also designed a folded leaflet, allowing you to run the workshop yourself and spark conversations in your own spaces.
If you’d like to offer a Metal Welcome to your home or workplace, then these limited edition doormats are available to buy. Visit our shop to find out more.
