A Real Birmingham Family has been four years in the making and is a collaboration between Ikon gallery in Birmingham and former Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing. The idea was to find a real Birmingham family local to the museum and immortalise them in bronze. On Thursday the family who modelled for the bronze cast unveiled the sculpture, which now stands in the Centenary Square outside the new Library in Birmingham. 

A Real Birmingham Family raises the issue of what makes a modern family today. Between 2011 and 2012 Birmingham residents were encouraged to nominate themselves and their families to become the face of Birmingham. Nominations were received by contrasting groups, from single parents to grandparents looking after five grandchildren. In 2013, the Jones family, who include two mothers Roma and Emma and their sons Shaye and Ryan, were chosen as the A Real Birmingham Family subjects by a panel of community, cultural and religious figures that included Ikon director Jonathan Watkins and Aston Villa club director Ian Taylor. The decision was made on the basis of what makes a true Birmingham family, the values were friendship, diversity and links to the city. 

Wearing’s 2008 project A Typical Trentino Family, carried out in Italy, formed the basis for A Real Birmingham Family . During the project the artist was given statistics on what made a family typical in Trento, Wearing found the definitions were diverse and included living alone. Of her real Birmingham family Wearing said: ‘I really liked how Roma and Emma Jones spoke of their closeness as sisters and how they supported each other, it seemed a very strong bond, one of friendship and family, and the sculpture puts across that connectedness between them’, concluding — ‘A nuclear family is one reality but it is one of many and this work celebrates the idea that what constitutes a family should not be fixed.’ 

A Real Birmingham Family is located outside of the Centenary Square outside the new library in Birmingham.