Chenine Bhathena
Creative Director of the UK City of Culture in Coventry 2021, with overall responsibility for developing programmes, co-creation and community engagement and the development of national and international partnerships. Through the City of Culture programme she has shed a light on both local and global issues, utilising the power of culture to make change happen and ensure ‘culture for all’ is a core priority in the years to come.
Chenine is committed to building a cultural movement, harnessing community activism and creating initiatives that are joyful and celebratory, but with a strong social conscience and that can make change happen. She brings her own mixed heritage (British/Pakistani) background into all her work, to ensure that inclusion and difference are centre stage as we celebrate our rich wealth of cultures and perspectives.
Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 began on 15 May 2021, running for 12 months. The 365-day cultural programme will reflect Coventry as a diverse, modern city, demonstrating that culture is a force that changes lives. Coventry is known internationally as a city of welcome, a city of activists and pioneers, peace and reconciliation, innovation, and invention, and now a City of Culture.
The first programme of its scale and breadth to take place in the UK since the arrival of the pandemic, in itself an audacious undertaking that will mark the return to live of the UK’s cultural and creative organisations, venues and festivals after an immensely challenging year.
Coventry is the city where movement began, from innovation in the transport industry to a history of welcome, it has moved people for centuries. For a whole year, Coventry is celebrating with events, music, dance, theatre, and large-scale spectacle. As well as these big celebrations, it will show its unexpected side, with more intimate experiences and ways to get involved in every neighbourhood. And it’s not just Coventry. This epic celebration will also witness the entire region getting involved and benefitting from the opportunities that being City of Culture brings.
It is co-created with the people of Coventry and bring about long-term social, economic and cultural benefits.
