The Wild Escape was a UK wide project commissioned by the Art fund to encourage young people to connect with nature. Museums were invited to engage with local schools and artists to create artworks from their animal collections. The project focused on future landscapes, biodiversity and climate change adaptation. The artworks were exhibited on Earth day 2023 in the local museums and nationally through a collective digital landscape displayed at Piccadilly Circus, London. The final celebration coincided with the launch of the BBC’s Wild isles television series bringing the learning into the home.

This collaboration, lead by Highlife Highland, involved Inverness Museum and Art Gallery, Highland Folk Museum, the Countryside Ranger Service and Claire Macdonald as lead artist. Three schools were invited to visit their local museum, learn about the collections, the animals and their habitats before creating future landscape story boxes in workshops with the artist.

Each school created 4-5 short films of the stories which can be viewed here for IMAG and here for HFM .

The children gained knowledge and understanding of their local biodiversity and the challenges of adaptation as well as many other skills including collaborative working, planning, compromise and performance.

“This project did so much more than create awareness of the importance of our environment and how humans have to take more responsibility for the direct impact we have on it. It also lead to so many other interesting conversations and mini research topics……..To watch their faces seeing their own work come to life was deeply moving. This has done a lot to build their self-esteem and self-belief that they can actually do something to bring about change and awareness.”

Mrs Magee P6 St. Josephs Primary, Inverness