Growing Futures

March–May 2023

Growing Futures aims to strengthen young people’s knowledge of the natural world through creative play.

Through a series of artist-led workshops and making sessions with Maya Gurung-Russell Campbell and Laura X Carlé, young people from local primary schools and nurseries explore the biodiversity of our onsite community garden, designed by artist Anthea Hamilton.

Creative sessions include mini beast hunts and biodiversity surveys of the garden, as well as hands-on creative activities including mask making and messy play.

Drawing inspiration from the longstanding traditions of mask-making and masquerade in the Caribbean and Nepal, Maya Gurung-Russell Campbell’s paper-mache mask making workshops look to centre indigenous beliefs of caring for the land and honouring nature through ritual. Laura X Carlé’s series of messy play activities for preschoolers will use clay, edible plants and food and recycled and waste materials to create sculptures inspired by the natural world.

Sessions will culminate on Earth Day 2023 on Saturday 22 April with a series of free drop-in family events, including exploring and making in the garden and workshops suitable for all ages.

Growing Futures is part of the Art Fund’s ‘The Wild Escape’ – a major UK-wide creative project for organisations to engage with schools and families, in celebration of UK wildlife and creativity.

The Wild Escape is made possible with support from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants, with additional support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Kusuma Trust, Foyle Foundation and a group of generous individuals and trusts.

Studio Voltaire's Garden Programme has received support from Fiorucci Art Foundation.

Drawing upon ancient traditions of mask-making, masquerade and ritual-based ceremonies, with a specific focus on interwoven practices within Britain, Nepal and the Caribbean, Maya Gurung-Russell Campbell engages in dialogue with these performative iterations of political resistance through object and image-based work, installations and video-performances that create space to explore the complex multiplicities within transcultural identity. Coming from a lens-based background, her foundation as an analogue photographer has evolved into working with time-based media such as 8mm film, dramatic monologue, improvised music and movement which is informed by jazz poetics. Taking Fred Moten’s conceptualisation of blackness as something “fugitive”, her practice uses the formal language of masquerade – masks, costume, sound and movement – to refuse and escape static modes of identity imposed upon the racialised body.
She completed a BA (Hons) in Photography from London College of Communication (2021), and was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2021, launching her first solo show Folklore Imaginary in 2022 at 87 Gallery, Hull, supported by New Contemporaries and the Mead Fellowship (2022-2023). Maya exhibited in Every Woman Biennale at Copeland Park Gallery, London (2021), won first prize in Black Cultural Archives Windrush Waves Open Call (2020-2021), Brent 2020 Artist Residency, London; and currently works as an Artist Educator for Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre.
Laura X Carlé was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she studied Fine Arts at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredon. In 2003 she moved to London where she studied a Masters Degree at Chelsea College of Art and Design. She currently lives and works in London and has a studio at the Lewisham Arthouse. Laura has exhibited in the UK and internationally at various art galleries and has held an artist residency for And’Art, Terre Sans Frontiere, in Marrakesh in 2010. Laura works as a freelance Artist Educator running workshops for families, schools and community groups in major Art Galleries and art organisations across UK. Laura works primarily with sculpture. The themes of her work come from situations that she witnesses in the social space. She produces objects and installations that aspire to challenge the spectator to question their own perceptions.
The Wild Escape will bring museums, schools, families and communities together to engage young people with the UK's natural environment, drawing inspiration from the art and objects in museums and the creative and learning opportunities they can offer.
It will bring schools and families into museum spaces, inviting young people to explore the animals in their collections and create stories and pictures that imagine a creature’s journey to a future habitat rich in biodiversity. The things they make in the classroom, online and in museums will be brought together in a collective work of art, unveiled during a weekend of activities for all ages on Earth Day 2023.
The Wild Escape will coincide with Wild Isles, the BBC’s new 5-part documentary series hosted by David Attenborough in Spring 2023 to explore the biodiversity and biodiversity loss across the UK, providing even more inspiration for activities.
Growing Futures forms part of The Wild Escape which is made possible with support from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants, with additional support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Kusuma Trust, Foyle Foundation and a group of generous individuals and trusts.
Image 1: In the studio with Maya Gurung-Russell Campbell, Artiq, Nathan Wolf Grace.
Image 2: Maya Gurung-Russell Campbell, Adding A Face. Courtesy the artist.
Image 3-4: Courtesy Laura X Carlé