Urban Wilderness CIC delivered photo walks with CAFAG youth club as part of English Heritage’s national Reverberate programme, supporting young people to explore how heritage shapes their lives in the shadow of an abandoned coal mine.
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Mining Migrations was a collaboration between Urban Wilderness CIC, Keele University and Chatterley Whitfield Friends exploring hidden migration histories connected to Chatterley Whitfield Colliery. The exhibition was first presented at Chatterley Whitfield Nature Reserve during the Being Human Festival 2020.
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Urban Wilderness CIC worked with Canal & River Trust to consult young people on their perceptions of Manchester’s canal system and their hopes for its future. Through photo walks, discussion and model-making, the project explored safety, identity and new possibilities for neglected
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For Winter Wastelands, artist and graphic designer Jon Paul Green created five short typographic poems installed across Stoke-on-Trent using hand-cut stencils and temporary aggregate. His interventions offered small moments of connection, resilience and reflection during the winter lockdown period.
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A reflective ceramics project exploring pause, return and transform, created through online and in-studio making sessions during lockdown. Clay Comrades produced raku-fired cubes that capture personal reflections from 2020 and the importance of staying connected as a creative community.
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The Immaculate Sisters of Hartshill explore seasonal rituals, symbolism and wellbeing through participatory performance rooted in mid-autumn transitions, inspired by Samhain and their lived experience of lockdown.
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The Weight of Things is an outdoor sculpture by David Bethell, hand-carved from polystyrene and covered with fibre-glass, sand, and paint. Installed in Keele Woods, the floating rock sculpture evokes hope and despair simultaneously, inspired by Rene Magritte’s 1953 painting Clear Ideas. The work encourages reflection on impermanence and resilience in challenging times.
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A series of artist commissions exploring how lockdown reshaped our relationships with local green spaces across Stoke-on-Trent — turning wastelands into places of imagination and possibility.
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A creative community project with Co-op Academy Stoke-on-Trent, Middleport Matters and the Canal & River Trust — exploring life along the Trent and Mersey Canal through art, play and storytelling.
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Youth-led canal-side transformation at Tinsley Marina, Sheffield — shaping place, confidence and connection through creative action.
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A community-led project empowering families and young people to reclaim public parks for play, creativity and connection through collaboration and trust.
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A co-created wooden vessel rising from the earth — a public art sculpture made with young people and artist David Bethell for the Forest Worlds Festival 2019.
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A joyful family arts festival co-created with young people and artists in Stoke-on-Trent, celebrating creativity, freedom and play through performances and workshops.
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