Coventry's old Ricoh sign gets new home and new look

The letters illuminate in different sequences while choir music plays

A Ricoh sign from Coventry's arena has been salvaged from the scrap heap to spell a new word and be at the heart of a new university campus.

The red letters that adorned the Ricoh Arena - now the Coventry Building Society Arena - now spell out "Choir" and have become a new art installation.

They will be illuminated in the Delia Derbyshire building at Coventry University until the end of January.

Audio of the city's One Voice Choir plays alongside it.

The letters were salvaged by BBC CWR and exhibited during Random String Festival as part of the City of Culture 2021.

At their new home, students and staff will create fresh audio for the exhibit, which will be accessed by the public on phones via a QR code.

The letters were taken from a sign within the stadium

The exhibit faces Starley Gardens on the other side of Cox Street and looks towards Coventry Cathedral.

It is displayed in collaboration with arts organisation Ludic Rooms and will be in place until 30 January.

Craig Ashley, associate head of school at the university's Faculty of Arts and Humanities said the piece "really resonates with the Delia Derbyshire association, contributing to our civic role and how we work together to bring those creative skills to the space".

Dom Breadmore, co-artistic director for Ludic Rooms said it was "an iconic illuminated sign for a lot of people in Coventry".

"These letters could very easily have ended up in a skip and finding some new way of breathing life into them and sharing them with more people was important to us."

Note January 4 2023: An earlier version of this article showed the stadium roof with a giant Ricoh sign. We amended it to avoid confusion as the CHOIR exhibit is actually made from smaller, refurbished letters taken from elsewhere in the stadium.