In February a member of our Big Local Partnership expressed an interest in seeing more public art across our area, and yesterday we finalised a mural as the first step in that journey. 

Arches Local commissioned renowned artist WOSKerski (Dawid) to artistically respond to a list of local stories and, as can be seen, he chose to respond to the story of Cabbage Island.

Little is known about the exact origin and boundary of Cabbage Island, but it represents Luton’s historic role as an agricultural area, predominantly growing cabbages. The term was repopularised in 2017 by Icon Theatre in their efforts to celebrate the hidden history of Luton. 

Creative licence was key from the outset and as such Dawid portrayed the story of Cabbage Island in a unique way by painting a cabbage that returned to Luton along with a team of investigators establishing what exactly happened.

Whilst ​​we were sheltering from Storm Ciaran, Dawid ran a workshop at Luton Primary School, where he outlined his career as an artist and gave the children a painting challenge of their own. As a parting gift to the school, Dawid painted one of his famous pieces, a fried egg.

If you have a wall or a local story you’d like to be considered in future murals, please get in touch!