The animals of Northumberland have somehow all ended up in the museum. Barn owl and badger, puffin and swan, jay and squirrel, and even fox and rabbit found themselves far from home. They looked at the collections of the Great North Museum, and when they had seen all there was to see, they grew bored. They missed their homes. But where could they go? And how would they get out of the museum?
“The Wild Escape: Back to Nature” stitches together the epic collective artwork produced by primary school children of the North East. On 22 April, Earth Day, storyteller and landscape researcher Lotte Dijkstra takes you on a journey to a surprisingly closeby natural place, together with the animals drawn by the children.
The drawings were made between 10 March and 22 April 2023 in collaboration with the artist and Drawing for the Planet Founder Jane Lee McCracken. The project requires participating museums to focus on UK wildlife from their collections. In celebration of the Great North Museum’s Mythquest: Monsters and Mortals exhibition Learning Officer, Kate Holden, is delivering Urban Nature workshops where children from South Tyneside and County Durham schools learn about animals in Northumbrian mythology, including puffin, red fox, badger, red squirrel, rabbit, hedgehog, barn owl, jay and swan.
The animals visible in the museum windows are biro drawings by children of Esh Primary in County Durham, with credits to Jane Lee McCracken.