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Museums join forces to highlight biodiversity loss
Events took place across the UK as part of the Wild Escape campaign
More than 500 museums took part in activities last weekend to highlight the nation’s biodiversity loss through the Wild Escape campaign.
The Wild Escape is a collaboration between the Art Fund, WWF, RSPB, English Heritage and the National Trust, with funding from Arts Council England. The activities took place over the weekend as part of Earth Day, a global day of action to support the protection of the environment.
Wild Escape family events included nature trails, wildflower plantings, curated museum tours, artist-led activities, animal sculpture and puppet workshops, animal art demonstrations and parades, storytelling and bird watching, all inspired by collections.
The Wild Escape featured a digital landscape commissioned from games studio Preloaded. Children’s creations – images of animals inspired by an object from a museum’s collection – were uploaded onto the imaginary world and accessed via the Wild Escape website.
The Wild Escape campaign also featured British artists who contributed their own interpretative artworks of animals in museum collections. Participating artists included Rana Begum, Elizabeth Butterworth, Monster Chetwynd, Jeremy Deller, Es Devlin, Andy Holden, Lindsey Mendick, Heather Phillipson, Thomas J Price, Mollie Ray, Tai Shani, Yinka Shonibare, Bob and Roberta Smith, FKA Twigs and Mark Wallinger.
“The Wild Escape is a real demonstration of the power of our museums to work together for the benefit of their communities," said Art Fund director Jenny Waldman. "Beyond the bricks and mortar of buildings, The Wild Escape sheds new light on the stories told by our world famous collections, and shows how relevant and vital these stories are. Never has there been a more important time for all of us to campaign for and protect our precious wildlife.”
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Darren Henley, the chief executive of Arts Council England, said: “We’re passionate about supporting young people of all ages to be creative, no matter where they live, where they go to school and where they spend their free time. That’s why I’m proud to have supported the ambitious Wild Escape project with a National Lottery Project Grant of £890,000 – the largest we’ve ever given to a museums project."
The Wild Escape was inspired by BBC One’s Wild Isles series presented by David Attenborough. It was developed in partnership with BBC Bitesize, the free study resource for children, which has been hosting films featuring the works of the participating artists.
Earth Day's aim is to diversify, educate and activate the worldwide environmental movement. Growing out of the first Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day is the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 150,000 partners in over 192 countries.