About The Wild Escape
The Wild Escape is a major new project led by Art Fund uniting hundreds of museums with schools and families in a celebration of UK wildlife and creativity.
Taking place from January to July 2023, The Wild Escape invites children to find a favourite animal in their local museum and create an artwork imagining its journey to a natural habitat.
The pictures and stories children create will be brought together in a collective work of art that imagines a better future for the wildlife on our doorstep, launched online and in venues across the UK on Earth Day 2023.
The Wild Escape is led by Art Fund alongside hundreds of museums, artists and environmentalists, in partnership with WWF, the RSPB, National Trust and English Heritage.
The Wild Escape is made possible thanks to funding from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants, with additional support from Kusuma Trust, Foyle Foundation and a group of generous individuals and trusts.
The Wild Escape is inspired by Wild Isles, a landmark BBC series exploring the flora and fauna of the UK.
The Wild Escape at Corinium Museum
We are very excited to participate in The Wild Escape.
Three classes from Chesterton Primary recently spent the day exploring the museum and hunting for animals. The children were asked to find as many animals as they could, as well as choosing some of their favourites to write about later. The Museum hummed with the energy of young minds and eyes seeking out animals and fanciful creatures.
Once the hunt was over, they settled into one of our Winstone Learning Centre and under the guidance of professional poet JLM Morton, they began creating imagery and scenarios – animals escaping the prisons of their mosaics, or sculpture or pottery, just to name a few. Again, the atmosphere of the classroom was brimming with ideas about fleeing animals, feelings of returning “home”, and future adventures. Some wrote haikus, some wrote epic poems, and some wrote hilarious rhymes. Some of them were stunning and poignant, all of them were impressive!
We enjoyed the literary component of this project thoroughly and the children’s enthusiasm has inspired us to expand it beyond the borders of this excellent campaign.
A Corinium Wild Escape!
JLM Morton has written a poem for children which imagines the animals in the Corinium galleries escaping back to their wild, natural habitats.
Many thanks to Juliette (JLM Morton), the Corinium Museum team, and especially our volunteer Alan who worked very hard to provide such a fun opportunity for learning and creativity. Kindly supported by The Steadings, Cirencester.
