Heritage of Nature at Down House
Freelance project commissions starting February 2022 - April 2022
The project engaged with a group of 10 young people and their families who attend The Royal Society for Blind Children, London, a charity that offers a range of services including emotional support and practical advice for families and opportunities for children and young people to build confidence and skills. Shout Out Loud supported them to become ‘heritage activators’ at an English Heritage site, significant in the history of science and evolution, Down House was Charles Darwin’s family home, where we wrote ‘On the Origin of the Species’.
The theme of the engagement was ‘Heritage of Nature” and those who took part in the programme explored Charles Darwin’s history, natural experiments and discoveries, considering how our connection to the natural world has changed since Charles Darwin’s time and has been influenced by him. We looked at nature through the lens of ‘Past, Present and Future’.
I supported the young people and their families to create a collaborative artwork that will be on display at Down House’s discovery room. The young people engaged in writing poetry, and together we looked at the preservation of flora and fauna through Botanical Plaster Casting and pressing flowers. I led another session where we looked at the work of William Morris, whose work insisted on natural dyes, hand processing and quality, raw materials and made natural paints. Families visited the Science Museum, and to follow up we visited Down House for the second time, where we followed in the great scientist’s footsteps by learning further about his observations and experiments. We thought together about the future of nature, and worked in a similar style to artist Anselm Kiefer, working in an impasto style incorporating found organic elements to create an artwork, using sentences taken from earlier poems, and the flowers we had preserved over the weeks.
Find out more about the project by viewing the images and clicking on the logos below..
