This summer, Orleans House Gallery’s environmental exhibition Remember the Future offers children and their families the opportunity to experience and learn more about nature in fun and engaging ways. The exhibition looks at the impact we have on the environment and asks what can we do to fix our relationship with nature. Events running alongside include Families in the Forest and Let’s Get Creative and are perfect for families who want to be outside during the summer holidays, learn more about their environment and nature and get creating.
Kids can explore nature in the gallery grounds this summer. Bring a picnic for the lawn and explore the woods to see what animals you can find. The gallery provides clipboards, pencils and paper for families to write or draw what they see. Groups can join the Families in the Forest tours, heading out into the grounds to encounter ancient trees, flowers, bats and moles. Each plant and creature offers an invitation to think about how they live in the environment: young bats might inspire us to close our eyes and feel our surroundings with our hands, summoning colours with our imaginations.
Children aged 4-11 can join artist Bryony Benge-Abbott, whose works are on display in the exhibition, for Let’s Get Creative in August. Join Bryony in the wild woodlands at Orleans House Gallery armed with their pencils, ink and found materials to explore and draw in the woodlands. Pretend to be creatures big and small on mini adventures in the forest and see what trees and animals you can find around you, from Cedar of Lebanon and cherry trees, to squirrels, voles, woodpeckers and more!
In the gallery, visitors can take part in the interactive exhibit Colourfied in the Octagon Room. Take a card, sit in a brightly coloured beach deckchair and think about what you can see from the windows – visitors are invited to name a colour inspired by what they see. Children will love inventing their own colours before heading further into the gallery to find artworks made of grass, wood and more. Artists in residence Nestor Pestana, Vicky Long, Eloise Moody and Bryony Benge-Abbott will also be on site on select days doing research enabling visitors to chat to them to find out what they’re up to.
