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.

By bringing schools and families into museum spaces, young people will be invited 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 five-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.

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 (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina) studied Fine Arts at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón, gaining a Masters Degree in 2003 at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

She currently lives and works in London where she works as a freelance Artist Educator running workshops for families, schools and community groups in major Art Galleries and art organisations across the UK.

X Carlé 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. X Carlé works primarily with sculpture mediums. 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.

Maymana Arefin (she/they) is a community gardener, activist, artist and spoken word poet based in south London whose work focuses on mycology, care work and decolonial feminist approaches to nature. She currently works as an Early Years Ecology educator at Studio Cultivate, as well as running a range of freelance creative workshops, walks and storytelling sessions about plants and fungi. In 2020, Maymana founded @fungi.futures on Instagram, to map radical alternative futures, guided by her fascination for our fungal ancestors. Her award-winning masters' research on how the mycelial networks of fungi may be used as a metaphor for mutual aid re-imagines an unjust world through a politics of hope.

Studio Voltaire has step-free access throughout our gallery, participation and events spaces, cafe, shop and garden.

Accessible toilets and baby change facilities are available on the ground and first floor. All our toilets are self-enclosed and all-gender.

Highchairs are available in Juliet's Cafe.

For full access information please visit our Visit Page.

If you would like to discuss your visit or have any questions about the event, please email participation@studiovoltaire.org

Design by F.A.T. Studio