This project brought together a group of the city’s younger and older citizens across a series of reflective artistic workshops to explore the nuances of their own identities, and where those identities fit into the new multicultural tapestry of the city, and its people.

The physical legacy of the project was a multimedia and visual arts exhibition consisting of suitcases reimagined artistically to tell the individual stories of participants.

Each ‘Suitcase Story’ represents a reflection of a life shared between different cultures and places, the story of how the participants have come to bridge their own cultural and civic identities, the story of their memories of the past and their hopes for the future.

“The independent evaluation of the Creative Legacies programme singled out Suitcase Stories as an example of how arts can increase people’s understanding of others by integrating groups of individuals from diverse backgrounds”.

Janice Smith, Belfast City Council