A NEW artwork made from pieces created through a series of local community workshops has taken pride of place at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery.
Leicestershire artist Rachel Grevatte assembled the new piece, known as The Found Tree, from artwork created by more than 100 participants from groups across the city, who took part in series of five community workshop sessions.
The final colouful image, which is designed to reflect the birds in the museum’s collection of arts, crafts and natural history artefacts, is now on show at the museum’s World Arts Gallery.
It is the centrepiece of a new display formed as part of the museum’s health and wellbeing work, designed to get local people involved in working alongside a professional artist to get creative.
Groups taking part included The Carers Centre Leicestershire and Rutland; the charity Focus; Leicester Community Links Allotment Group, and the ArtReach – ROOTS group.
They created eye-catching paper birds from materials such as letters, poems, song words or recipes, which were then added as a collage to the tree of life design. Museum visitors created the tree’s bark and leaves using rubbings, prints and paintings of the trees in New Walk and the surround area.
The exhibition is accompanied by a display of bird-themed objects from the museum stores. It runs until October 31, 2021.
Leicester Museums and Galleries are an Arts Council-funded National Portfolio Organisation.
Leicester deputy city mayor for culture, leisure and sport, Cllr Piara Singh Clair, said: “People have had to cope with a lot of difficulties over the last 18 months, and part of the reason for these workshops was to get local people involved in activities where they can meet others and improve their health and wellbeing.
“By working with Rachel Grevatte, the result has been this beautiful new artwork, which is now on display for visitors to enjoy.”
Rachel added: “It was such a pleasure to work with the groups and encourage them to be playful with paint and colour.
“To take inspiration from the museum’s wonderful eclectic collections has been a privilege. I hope the artwork inspires others to try collage or look for more birds at the museum.”
More details of the project are available here.
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