Mosaic in Scarborough

This is a community art work called, appropriately enough, "Uniting The Community". The artist involved was Gabrielle Naptali, working with assistance from Niall Bower-Costigan and many friends and young people from the Barrowcliffe Youth Centre. Around 46,000 vitreous glass tiles were used in making the mosaic. It is on the wall of the police station in Victoria Road, and the fingerprint is a reference to that. It's also a reminder about the importance of everyone's individuality.

The Scarborough Half Coat of Arms has the motto "per pericula ad decus ire juvat". This translates as "Let it rejoice thee to set dangers at nought in the quest of honour"; in other words "feel good about overcoming dangers when you know you're doing the right thing".

Scarborough is a fishing port, hence the fish and waves. The outline of the fish turns into a skipping rope at its tail - this is to celebrate the unique Scarborough folk custom of going skipping on the foreshore on Shrove Tuesday. The picture below is a detail of the fish's head. back to list (tiles in York)