4 August 2021
The Weekly
England

A giant piece of public art has been wrapped around the Selfridges store in Birmingham. Local artist Osman Yousefzada designed the temporary cover for the building in the city's Bullring shopping centre. It comes as the store is being refurbished ahead of the Commonwealth Games, which come to Birmingham in 2022. All 15,000 silver discs normally viewable on the outside of the distinctive building are being removed and stored while insulation is installed along with a new facade. To cover the scaffolding, Selfridges and Birmingham art gallery Ikon commissioned Mr Yousefzada to produce the design, called Infinity Pattern 1. The canvas measures 125ft by 819ft (38m by 250m) and weighs five tonnes (5,000kg). The artwork, which aims to address the issues of race, labour and migration across the city, will remain in place until the end of the year. It will then be gradually dismantled while renovation work to the store is completed.