From 2018 to 2025, co-directors Laurel Gallagher, Isla Telford, and Jenny Harper led Urban Wilderness CIC, bringing art, play, and creative collaboration into communities across Stoke-on-Trent and the Midlands. This archive preserves a record of their projects, partners, and impact.
Winter Wastelands brought together creative responses from across Stoke-on-Trent during the winter lockdown of 2020/21. Urban Wilderness CIC commissioned artists and communities to explore connection, wellbeing, ritual and resilience through public art, clay, poetry, digital portraiture and creative rituals.
Read MoreBy a Thread is a textiles artwork by illustrator Becki Kremer, combining hand embroidery and felt on transparent netting. Installed temporarily in Central Forest Park, the work reflects on the relationship between nature and humanity through a quotation from Wordsworth’s Lines Written in Early Spring.
Read MoreDiverse Landscapes is a digital photography project by Adina Lawrence, exploring heritage and identity through outdoor portraiture in Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire. Models wore outfits reflecting their cultural backgrounds, colour-matched to natural surroundings and photographed with minimal processing to highlight authenticity and connection to place.
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