Artwork On Display By 150 Local Children In The Wild Escape Exhibition At Keswick Museum
Over 150 young students from five local primary schools have been taking part in a series of creative workshops with Keswick Museum to create a new ‘Wild Escape’ exhibition in its popular Community Gallery.
During the workshops, students were introduced to the various endangered species on display at the museum and the particular issues that each of them face in order to survive — such as intensive farming, pollution, invasive species and deforestation.
The museum’s learning team and teachers discussed what makes the perfect habitat for each creature and how vast improvements, awareness and conservation in recent years have made some animal and bird numbers grow again.
Students were tasked with choosing an animal, bird or insect and imagining it in its perfect habitat, while thinking about words that may describe that environment (how it might look, sound, smell or feel). Each student then personally responded to the brief by creating their own painted canvas.
All 150 canvases will be on display in an eye-catching exhibition in the museum’s free-to-enter Community Gallery from April 22nd to coincide with the international Earth Day 2023.
Keswick Museum has also been selected as one of only six museums across the country to feature in a series of new short films – another part of the national Wild Escape project.
The films have been produced about young artists taking inspiration for their art from museum collections. The first film, featuring a visit to Keswick Museum by comic artist and illustrator Mollie Ray, focuses on badgers in the museum’s collection. In the film, Mollie explores the collection and finds a host of inspiring animals to draw, creating a brilliant comic-book work of art featuring a friendly badger.
About The Wild Escape
Taking place from January to July 2023, and building towards a nationwide moment on Earth Day 2023, The Wild Escape has invited primary school children (ages 7-11) to find a favourite animal in their local museum and create an artwork imagining its journey to a natural habitat. Their pictures are being brought together in an epic collective artwork unveiled on Earth Day.
Led by Art Fund and supported by Arts Council England, The Wild Escape is an opportunity for the next generation to join in the conversation about biodiversity. Leading artists, creatives and environmentalists are also imagining animals’ journeys to inspire children to take part, including Es Devlin, Heather Phillipson, Rana Begum, Mollie Ray, Yinka Shonibare, Tai Shani, FKA Twigs, Claire Twomey, Mark Wallinger and Angela Palmer.
To find out more about The Wild Escape, visit: https://thewildescape.org.uk/about
About the Keswick Museum film
Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh7kvXYWhUw&t=1s
Mollie Ray’s website
