Young people reimagine UK’s green spaces in new Arboretum exhibition
A new exhibition created by young people from across the UK has opened at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire - exploring the connections between landscapes, communities and the natural world.
‘Green Spaces, Shared Places: Past, Present and Future’ opened on Saturday 11 July as part of Art Fund’s UK-wide touring exhibition programme, Going Places, bringing together museums, artists and local communities to uncover the stories held within the places around us.
Hosted at the National Memorial Arboretum, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on what landscapes can tell us about the past, what they reveal about the present and how we can help shape their future.
The exhibition has been developed through a partnership between four cultural and heritage organisations - The National Memorial Arboretum, Dales Countryside Museum, Arlington Court and National Trust Carriage Museum, and Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens (through Sunderland Culture).
Young people from each location have worked alongside artists and museum teams to help shape the exhibition, sharing new perspectives on the collections, environments and stories connected to each site.
Over the past year, the young people have worked together to co-curate the exhibition, selecting stories, objects and creative responses that explore the evolving relationship between people, plants and wildlife. Featuring historic collections, site-specific interventions and new art commissions, the exhibition will be displayed across indoor and outdoor spaces, offering visitors a fresh perspective on what it means to be a ‘green place’.
The indoor exhibition brings together objects spanning hundreds of millions of years through to the present day, including a Bronze Age pot discovered by the Arboretum, a Womble toy promoting environmental responsibility from Sunderland Museum, wooden printing blocks from the Dales Countryside Museum and an early 20th century staff records book from Arlington Court.
Together with creative responses from the young people involved in the project, the objects explore how people have connected with landscapes and the natural world across generations.
Alongside the touring exhibition, visitors can also experience ‘Green Spaces, Shared Places: Gathering’, a new outdoor commission by artist Emma Dawson Varughese, created in collaboration with the Arboretum's youth steering group and pupils from local schools.
The installation features pyrography artworks inspired by young people's experiences of green spaces, alongside The Komorebi Tapestry, a collaborative artwork created using fallen leaves collected from across the Arboretum.
Aaron Rossi, Exhibitions and Heritage manager at the National Memorial Arboretum, said: “This exhibition has been a truly collaborative journey, bringing together young people, artists, museums and communities to explore the stories held within our landscapes.
“Working with our partners through the Art Fund’s Going Places programme has given us the opportunity to look at the Arboretum and our shared green spaces through a fresh perspective, shaped by the ideas and creativity of the next generation.”
