The WELCOME project brought together adolescent artists from diverse cultural backgrounds to create street flags celebrating culture and identity. Launched to coincide with Refugee Week (15–21 June), the flags speak to the 2025 theme, "Finding Freedom: Diversity in Community."

Led by professional artist and mentor Sara Wilson, the group explored how they could visually represent their cultures, while creating a cohesive design narrative. The 10-week workshop program introduced participants to designing on tablets using digital drawing techniques for large scale reproduction.

The designs express the artists' deep connection to heritage and culture along with embracing their new lives in Wagga Wagga. The word WELCOME is intended as an invitation to all our community to both welcome and be welcomed.

The WELCOME project is a collaboration between Wagga Wagga City Council and our community partner STARTTS Wagga Wagga. We would also like to acknowledge Brittany Hefren and Leila Davandeh for the photographic documentation of the process. All rights reserved to these artists.