Urban Wilderness CIC is a community arts organisation based in Stoke‑on‑Trent. This archive highlights key projects and events that illustrate our practice, partnerships and impact. During this period, the organisation was led by founding co-directors Laurel Gallagher, Isla Telford, and Jenny Harper. Our flagship annual events — Pig Walk Parade and Winter Gathering — are included here as recurring anchor entries, alongside other major commissions and collaborations.
TRACOBAND is a choreographed outdoor dance performance by artist Lola Adodo, blending live percussion, community volunteers and historic-inspired movement. Presented at Keele University and All Saints Community Garden during The Happenings 2021.
Read MoreA solo performance devised by Sophia Hatfield in collaboration with women’s running groups and the Canal & River Trust, staged along the Etruria Canal on 26 September 2021 as part of The Happenings Festival of Public Art in Stoke-on-Trent.
Read MoreThe Happenings festival in Stoke-on-Trent explored small-scale, site-specific public art, activating overlooked urban spaces through creativity, care, and connection.
Read MoreFor 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
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 MoreThe 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.
Read MoreOur Youth Grows in a Wasteland is an audio drama project by Potboiler Theatre exploring young people’s experiences of being outdoors in Stoke-on-Trent. Through collected stories, audio plays, and a verbatim account of the city’s first Black Lives Matter protest, the work amplifies youth voices and local activism within Hanley Park.
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.
Read MoreTaking Up Space brings together Black women from Staffordshire to reclaim green spaces through walking, dance, and poetry. Initiated after the 2020 lockdown, the project culminated in dance and poetry performances filmed in Hanley Park.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreA 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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