The Wild Escape is a new project uniting hundreds of museums and schools in a celebration of UK wildlife and creativity.
We will be working with Charter Primary School in Canley, and artist Laura Ellen Bacon, to create a sculptural willow habitat for wildlife in the school grounds.
Our collaboration will begin when students from Charter Primary visit our Sculpture Trail.
Liz Dooley, our Art Collection Curator, will give the students a tour which includes seeing Laura Ellen Bacon’s sculpture, Don’t Let Go.
Don’t Let Go is created from woven willow which sits loosely around a tree. It provides a habitat for lots of bugs and small birds such as wrens.
It was created in 2019, as a sharp decline in insect numbers hit the headlines. Insects are a vital component in the biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems.
This artwork, built around, yet separate to the tree, will in time degrade and decompose, a process supported by the insects currently living within it.
Over three sessions, Laura Ellen Bacon will visit Charter Primary school to teach the children how to weave willow.
She will work with them to create a sculpture to enhance the school grounds, inspired by their ideas and their visit to Warwick Arts Centre.
The sculpture will encourage wildlife to make a new home and give the students an opportunity to observe them long after the project concludes.
Students will also be encouraged to use the habitat to inspire creative activities around Earth Day. This includes photographing, drawing or painting pictures of its wildlife, or even writing stories and poems about the creatures that may be living on and in the sculpture.
#TheWildEscape
The Wild Escape is made possible by lead support from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants, with additional support from Art Fund.
It is an opportunity for the next generation to join in the conversation about biodiversity.
The project is inspired by Wild Isles, a new landmark BBC natural history series that will reveal a previously unseen wild side of the UK.
It invites primary school children to creatively respond to art and nature through wildlife found in galleries and museums and content shared on BBC Bitesize.
