On the Friday of this year’s Forest of Imagination, we enjoyed an “Up Late” session from 6-8pm at the Holburne Museum, inviting participants to explore and create a Digital Forest. Bath Spa University is an Adobe Creative Campus, and we had the opportunity to experiment with Adobe Firefly, an AI creative tool. Many participants used AI to generate images via work prompts and enjoyed fascinating...
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Now entering our eleventh year, Forest of Imagination is taking over The Holburne Museum and Gardens, from 26 – 30 June 2024. This year’s theme will highlight a vibrant ‘Ring of Biodiversity’ through stories and creative interventions. Taking advantage of the diverse landscapes and habitats, Forest of Imagination’s physical presence will reinforce the green setting of the Museum Gardens leading into Sydney Gardens and the...
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26 June 6-8pm, Forest of Imagination at the Holburne Museum and Gardens Biodiversity Ring: A Million Small Acts is the theme of this year’s Forest of Imagination, being held at The Holburne Museum in Bath. During this opening event, you will have the opportunity to explore our immersive installations and meet the artists and creatives behind it. Bookings via Eventbrite >
5 Jun 2024, 6–8pm BST at Locksbrook Campus, Bath Spa University, BA1 2EL This year Forest of Imagination 2024 | Biodiversity Ring: a million small acts will be at the Holburne Museum and Gardens from 26-30 June addressing the theme of biodiversity. You are invited to a pre-event with Bath RSA and What Next? at the beautiful Locksbrook Campus, Bath Spa University overlooking the River Avon. More info and booking details >
30 May 6-7.30pm | Bath Community Kitchen at Locksbrook Campus, Bath Spa University Bath Community Kitchen (BCK) will share their work using communal meals and cookery workshops to improve people’s physical and mental wellbeing in Bath and surrounding areas. BCK believe that cooking and sharing food are powerful therapeutic and educational tools to improve people’s lives and that good food should be available to all. Bookings and...
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‘Assemble in the Forest’ was an invitation to come together and celebrate the beauty and biodiversity of Bath and once again to showcase the imagination of our community. In addition, it provided an opportunity to shine a light on the importance of forests across the world and what they mean to us in Bath, especially in response to the climate emergency. This year, we were...
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In 2023, We were inspired by the opportunity to link art, nature, and the social life of the city into an experience that takes full advantage of the grand internal rooms and the distinctive outdoor spaces in The Bath Assembly Rooms. The Assembly Rooms has recently returned to the management of The National Trust and they are working to develop a new Georgian experience, currently...
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Please read the beautiful and generous thought piece written by François Matarasso. Here is an excerpt: “…the House of Imagination shows just what can be achieved by adapting flexibly to changing conditions when you have a diamond-sharp vision of what you want to achieve.” Read here >
Bookings are open! Please use our FOI 2023 event guide PDF and click the “book” buttons, you can also visit our Eventbrite page for a full listing of our FOI 2023 events and workshops. Bookable events listed elsewhere are as follows: RSA George Monbiot in conversation with Andrew Grant – Thursday 15 June, 6-7pm, Online via Zoom Rob Hopkins – Thursday 22 June, 6-7pm, Bath Assembly Rooms...
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‘If you were a tree, what would you be?’ This first invitation focuses on exploration of this question from a global perspective. Linking to this year’s Forest of Imagination, it provides the opportunity for children to link art and nature, and to respond to the themes of beauty, biodiversity, personal and community. It shines a light on the importance of forests across the world, what...
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Elisha Westmore, Creative Producer for House of Imagination, reflects on her first year working with the charity In my fourth and final year studying Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, I undertook a Professional Placement Year as a Content Creator with The Studio in Bath: The university’s creative technology co-working hub and research centre. Throughout my placement, I was lucky enough to be able...
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A contemporary arts and architecture project for all ages, co-curated by a leading academic at Bath Spa University, has won a prestigious national award. The annual Bath-based pop-up arts festival, Forest of Imagination, brought ‘Living Tree Mirror Maze’ to the city in 2022, and it was one of just four projects from around the country to be shortlisted in the ‘one off activity – children’ category...
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We’re fundraising for FOI 2022 and we need your help! Berlin-based artist Andrew Amondson shares some ways you can support this year’s Forest of Imagination… Please help us achieve our goal Please view our crowdfunding page here. We have some fab rewards to thank everyone who donates, whatever the amount you might give. Check them out! All rewards can be collected from the forest between 17 June...
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Forest of Imagination 2021 included Travelling Forest pop-events and installations along the theme of ‘Gathering Perspectives on the Landscape City’ and in response to the climate emergency. The locations were: Bath Spa University’s Locksbrook Campus, Bath City Farm, Batheaston’s Secret Garden, Beckford’s Tower, American Museum and Gardens and the Holburne Museum. These learning invitations are designed to support the co-enquiries of children, educators and families,...
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The Living Tree installation was co-designed with artist and film-maker Andrew Amondson and architect Sasha Mballa-Ekobena, who work with Olafur Eliasson’s Studio in Berlin. Andrew and Sasha worked closely with design students at Bath Spa University and the Forest of Imagination team to realise a forest in the egg. The event included an integrated creative learning programme, creative research, public engagement and knowledge exchange. Please...
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In The Egg this September for you to explore 11–18 September The Egg Theatre If a tree falls in the forest… we need to listen. Why are we cutting down trees at a time when we need them most? The balance of nature is in danger, yet we carry on with our traditions while the world burns around us. The trees we fell for our...
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Saturday 3 July, 10am-4pm The Holburne Museum Discover the benefits of the doodle! With pen and paper and easy conversation participants might be given the headspace for reflection, tools for relaxation, and a pathway for reconnection with one another. Beth’s interest in the psychology of the everyday stirs a curiosity to know how the combination of verbal and non-verbal communication, and the expression of a personal...
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Saturday 3 July, 10am-4pm The Holburne Museum Join Pippa in a Nature’s Fingerprints Printmaking Workshop to learn how to make your own water-floated concentric monoprints using natural & sustainable materials. In this exciting monoprinting workshop we will be floating naturally derived inks on a bath of water: a mesmerizing process that creates swishing and swirling shapes and patterns reminiscent of the concentric rings that form within...
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Friday 2 July, 10am-4pm Batheaston’s Secret Garden Jessica will seek offerings of favourite and beloved trees, photos, drawings, collages, silhouettes etc and ask for these to be drawn, cut out and attached to the map. Visitors can take away a small envelope of papery materials with which to make their own tree. These interactions are designed with minimal contact.
Wednesday 30 June, 6-7pm (online) Join us to talk about the spaces in our lives where creative learning can flourish, hosted by CCI and Forest of Imagination. Where does creative learning flourish? Forest of Imagination has worked with arts and well-being charity Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination for many years celebrating how creative learning with children can happen everywhere in our cities – from grand museums to...
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Friday 25 June, 10am-4pm Bath City Farm Jessica will seek offerings of favourite and beloved trees, photos, drawings, collages, silhouettes etc and ask for these to be drawn, cut out and attached to the map. Visitors can take away a small envelope of papery materials with which to make their own tree.
Saturday 26 June, 10am-4pm Beckford’s Tower Join artist Lydia Halcrow (Families Acting on Climate Emergency – FACE) to explore the biodiversity (insect, flora, fauna) through the lens of one place in Bath, that will gradually form part of a map of biodiversity across and around the city that we can revisit to see how insect and wild flower species are doing each year to encourage and...
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Saturday 26 June, 10am-4pm Beckford’s Tower SENSE OF BELONGING A Sense of Belonging is a playful exploration of your sense of self in the environment around you. Take yourself on a journey and explore with what makes you you, what is your imprint on the land and what do you want to leave behind? This is a self led workshop with a series of written invitations...
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This Photography exhibition on the blank windows of no. 24 Milsom Street (former Loch Fyne restaurant) depicts images from the Therapeutic City Festival of 2019 when Milsom Street was closed to traffic for one weekend. It reminds us of the vibrancy possible in public spaces when people are placed before cars and life spills out into the spaces in between buildings. Project by Architecture Is…...
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Thank you for your interest in volunteering for Forest of Imagination 2021 We are really grateful for your support as we rely on our team of volunteers to help make the event a truly extraordinary experience for all our visitors! Forest of Imagination is open to all ages, but we do ask for volunteers who are over the age of 18. The information in this pack...
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Everyone is an Artist says Dr Penny Hay I am an artist, educator and researcher and on a daily basis aim to make creativity visible in experimental sites for learning in our House of Imagination. During lockdown we have been working with the Forest of Imagination and The Big Draw teams to co-design VirtualForest 2020. Being actively creative has become a lifeline – together we have...
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As the summer holidays unfold, we have asked the artists we work with and other independent collaborators to share their ideas for creative activities. Please see the list below and get involved. We would love to see your work and ideas as well. Do share your work with us on our social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook. Creative Writing Ideas Events of Wonder...
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“Our imagination is the unique human capacity to bring into our minds things that aren’t present. We daydream; imagination is everywhere; it invites potential and possibility. Children’s imaginations are powerful, they inhabit their imagination; exploring their ideas, feelings, senses, the light and the dark, always learning. Imagination has the power to release us from boundaries encountered in the adult world.” Co-Founder of Forest of Imagination...
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For the Earth And all that is holding us From the wilds of Dartmoor And the heart of Zimbabwe Our truth calls to us Simple and clear That we are this Earth That we are each other And our gratitude is a balm That can heal A film by Denise Rowe With Denise Rowe & Kennedy Chinyere Camera by Pete McCowen Supported by Forest of...
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Avon Wildlife Trust and Forest of Imagination to submit a joint proposal for a Nature and Art Discovery Centre at the Entry Hill golf course in Bath In collaboration with Forest of Imagination, Avon Wildlife Trust will submit a business proposal to BANES Council to reimagine the 10-hectare (ha) Entry Hill golf course into an intergenerational sustainable, wildlife-rich, inspiring and playful nature park, enriched...
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Illustrator Perry Harris has supported Forest of Imagination for many years, supporting the event with brilliant images, illustrations, cartoons and drawings depicting his vision of how Forest is represented in the city of Bath. Perry is a prolific artist who is not only constantly sketching, but he also works with watercolours, landscapes and video, his work can be found on his Pinterest page. This year...
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Textile artist, Alison Harper works with the theme of reimagining materials, her work often focuses on recycling, reusing and reimagining. This year, for the #VirtualForest2020, Alison has taken the theme of #enchanted to inform her work; finding the beauty and unexpected in everyday things, waste materials and in little corners of the world we often do not notice. She explains more here: “Enchanted is a digital project...
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Artist and chef, Helen Lawrence works and owns Bath institution Demuths, a vegan cookery school, this will inform her art work. Helen has plans to create an edible Forest, using medicinal herbs, seasonal and plant-based food, found and foraged in the forests and fields around Bath. Helen is also planning to collaborate with Castle Farm, to forage for edibles to inspire her creative cooking. Helen shares her work...
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Week Four at Virtual Forest 2020 has seen designer and sculptor Matthew Leece take over the Forest social media platforms. Matt has worked with Forest of Imagination since day one and he always brings his unique, startling and imaginative creative concepts into the Forest. Past workshops have included, the giant drawing machines, how bees see and this year, virtual vines. Virtual Vines, invites you to contribute...
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Week Three of Virtual Forest of Imagination 2020 and we showcase the working installation of artist Clare Day. Clare, who works in clay and print, and also on socially engaged projects, has worked with the Forest of Imagination since it began seven years ago, her Clay Forest has been an inspiration to thousands of members of the public who have visited Forest of Imagination over the...
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Jo Backhouse is a writer, artist and workshop-practitioner and has run workshops with Key Stage 3 students in Somerset for several years. She explains: “My aim is always to put the joy (often lost in the transition from primary to secondary education) back into writing. I start, almost always, with a blank page. From there we can see words as friendly tools, something to gather, sort out,...
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British artist, Jessica Palmer, launched the Virtual Forest of Imagination 2o20 with her beautiful paper artwork, Woodland Understory series, a discipline which involves collage, paper sculpture, paper cutting, digital drawing and painting. Jessica has been part of Forest since the beginning and this year has been inspired by the community farm, Bath City Farm, and her own forays into nature during the Covid 19 crisis. As part...
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Forest of Imagination and The Big Green Draw Join Forces Forest of Imagination and The Big Green Draw join forces during the pandemic to shine a light on the importance of nature and creativity in our wellbeing. Harnessing the power of their collective message, and to promote the importance of creativity and collaboration; Forest of Imagination will work alongside The Big Green Draw, supporting a...
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Having access to even the smallest of green space has become a symbol of hope for most during lockdown, when lives have suddenly been reduced to our immediate environment. As the leaves have unfurled and the swallows have returned, Spring has become, for the many who enjoy the advantage of being able to see, touch, smell and connect with nature, a major part of our...
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Thousands of Bath residents and visitors enjoyed a magical weekend of creativity when pop-up contemporary arts event Forest of Imagination was hosted at The Holburne Museum. The award-winning arts event returned to the city on 20-24 June 2019 with a multi-sensory array of outdoor and participatory art installations, workshops and sculptures in the museum grounds and Sydney Gardens. Running for its sixth consecutive year, 2019’s...
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The architect Piers Taylor from the agency Invisible Studio will work with Carpenter Oak and Momentum Engineering to create a tall landmark structure from forest thinnings to define the axis of the Life Line. The structure will act as a portal between the Holburne Museum and Sydney Gardens or locating it with Sydney Gardens. The structure will be approximately 10m high and will include an inner...
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This year the House of Fairy Tales invites Forest visitors to help them to study and incubate the gigantic and mysterious egg of the Ogulon, feeding it with our hopes for the future and our love of the natural world. Visitors will discover the story through a short self-led trail and then take part in workshops inside our marvellous laboratory and in beautiful tented structures...
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Forest of Imagination works across the city with primary and secondary schools inviting them to take part in the Forest. Two school days, running this year on Friday 21st June and Monday 24th June, will see schools participating in the Forest for free. The two schools days will include a wide range of workshops run by artists, architects, musicians, teachers, volunteers – these workshops will allow the students to...
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Peter Clegg, founder and senior partner at architectural practice FCB Studios has spoken to The Bath Magazine about how important it is for the architects at his practice to support and be involved in events like Forest of Imagination: “Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCB) support the Forest of Imagination, partly because, as architects, school design forms an important and enjoyable part of our workload, and partly...
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Pippa Pixley will be giving the fantastic opportunity of allowing children and adults to take part in a printing workshop which will explore line and shapes in nature. By being inspired by nature for example the stripes on bees or the rings on trees, you will then have the opportunity to turn your created prints into your own stories or poems. Website: www.pippapixley.co.uk Instagram: pippapixley
We are delighted to announce that for this years Forest of Imagination, Architecture Is will be carrying out a series of workshops that are looking to redesign the city of Bath. The principles for this work shop are to look at sustainable design which will include buildings, transport and energy. The work shops will be led by two architects and will include drawings and model...
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We run free school workshops every year at Forest of Imagination working with students from schools across the city of Bath. The school days provide Forest with an opportunity to invite schools and students to get involved with artists both local and international to create, make, inspire, enthuse and play. Workshops are run by organisations and artists and this year include: The House of Fairy Tales,...
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Award-winning arts and design pop-up Forest of Imagination returns to Bath on 20-24 June 2019, teaming up with the Holburne Museum to stage a festival of fantastical installations, creative workshops and sculptures designed to spark everyone’s imagination. Taking place for its sixth consecutive year, the free, five-day participatory event will invite people of all ages and from all backgrounds to experience a ‘Life Line’ of...
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Installations at Forest of Imagination 2018 included a sonic landscape at the heart of Kingsmead Square in Bath. Produced by the respected and talented musician Martyn Ware, who found fame at the height of the new wave, electronic and synthpop music in the mid-1980’s, as a founding member of two of the most respected groups at that time; The Human League and Heaven 17. Today Martyn produces, with his...
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A series of free creative workshops, including theatre, performance, design, science and art, designed and created by 5x5x5=creativity artists for children and young people will be available to all who visit Forest of Imagination 2018. On Friday 28th September Forest runs a schools day – providing workshops for local schools, home-educators and other groups. On Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th September these workshops are open...
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Forest of Imagination fosters a vision to support artists from myriad disciplines, enabling them to produce pieces of work commissioned for the Forest of Imagination and curated by co-founders Penny Hay and Andrew Grant. Installations, immersive pieces, soundscapes and architectural designs that reflect the brief, which this year focuses on the importance of Regeneration, Green and Blue Infrastructure, Wildlife Corridors, all seen through the lens and idea of a...
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Key to the ongoing success, strength and growth of Forest of Imagination is the continued interest and support given by a myriad of people from charities, artists, architect practices, musicians, foodies, writers, makers, independent businesses, councillors – encouraging the wellbeing and acceptance that providing the city of Bath with a free immersive, creative event is to the benefit of everyone. This year with many of our...
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We are united in making education sustainable by placing creativity at its heart, we want children and young people to fall in love with learning, but there are some things we need to re-think.’ The poem and film People Fall in Love is a clarion call for the world to reconsider an approach to learning – not one that commoditises education and stifles creativity to everybody’s...
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Forest of Imagination will unveil its creative workshops, installations and immersive creative experiences on the very same day as the brilliant Bath Children’s Literature Festival – Europe’s largest dedicated children’s literature festival. Together, these two annual Bath-based festivals, celebrate creativity, diversity, design, collaboration, words and the power of imagination – providing the community of Bath and visitors to the city with the opportunity to be inspired by a...
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The schools of art, architecture and science collided when Forest of Imagination launched the spectacular floating Aerocene sculpture during Forest of Imagination 2017. The sculpture flew high above Bushey Norwood, using wind currents and the heat of the sun, this incredible air-fuelled sculpture reached up to eight metres in size and was completely emission free. To see a video of Aerocene at Forest of Imagination 2017 click here. The Aerocene Project, is...
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Children today spend less time outside than maximum security prisoners, according to research carried out by Unilever in conjunction with Sir Ken Robinson. International guidelines for maximum security prisoners state that inmates should spend at least two hours outside a day, while, research undertaken by Unilever and Sir Ken Robinson, which surveyed more than 12,00 families worldwide, asked parents: ‘how much time their children spent outside...
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Forest of Imagination 2017 attracts thousands of visitors to meadows of Bushey Norwood, part of Bath’s Skyline Walk, to experience its fantastical forests, art trails and innovative sculptures. The free, pop-up contemporary arts event took place 29th June – 2nd July 2017 and saw The National Trust-owned meadow at Bushey Norwood transformed into a colourful tapestry of creative workshops and immersive artworks. Highlights of the...
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Back in 1754 the, now famous, architect John Wood the Elder had the extraordinary vision to design and build something groundbreaking in the City of Bath. With inspiration taken from amphitheatres, prehistoric stone circles and grand squares, Wood designed The Circus, a terrace of houses curving around a central circular space. Then topping each house with large, imposing, Bath Stone Acorns, with 108 altogether placed around the roofs of The Circus. Many...
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A forest is one of the best classrooms. Children, playing outdoors, learn through first-hand experiences and in cooperation with others. They play with ideas, thoughts and materials in a safe environment. To help the Forest of Imagination to create these outdoor classrooms and workshop spaces we supported a range of collaborations, partnerships and teamwork between disciplines and industries to support and offer new perspective in...
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Forest of Imagination believes that learning and education should be participatory, empowering and democratic, which is why collaboration is encouraged and propagated between different industries, businesses, students, schools, leaders, pupils and artists. The BookyBall is a structure that has been designed and built by a collaboration between students from the Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering at the University of Bath, alongside architects from Bath-based, architectural and urban design...
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Students from the Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering at the University of Bath have collaborated, alongside architects from Bath-based, architectural and urban design practice, FCB Studios, engineering consultants and specialists, Buro Happold and Bath University Teaching Fellow, Toby Lewis BSC MA RIBA to create a series of unique bespoke installations. The Hideaway is a House of Imagination for artists, storytellers, musicians and dancers. It takes the form of...
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The bedrock of the Forest of Imagination is collaboration. This year, students from the Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering at the University of Bath worked alongside architects from Bath-based, architectural and urban design practice, FCB Studios, engineering consultants and specialists, Buro Happold and Bath University Teaching Fellow, Toby Lewis BSC MA RIBA to create installations. The brief was to create a series of unique, bespoke installations, Houses of Imagination,...
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Bath textile artist Alison Harper, is returning to the Forest of Imagination this year and will be running a Cocoon Workshop and Cocoonery situated underneath a beautiful and enormous Beech Tree in Bushey Norwood. Forest visitors will have the pleasure of visiting Alison in her Cocconery to make their very own Cocoons and discover what creatures sleep in and create Cocoons. The lower leaves of the...
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Dame Helen Ghosh, Director-General at the National Trust has personally pledged her support of the Forest of Imagination, stating: “We want to make sure children and their families can enjoy exciting and memorable outdoor experiences and be inspired to protect the environment. This is why we are so pleased to support the Forest of Imagination and we are sure it will be a great success.”...
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This is a particularly exciting year for Forest as, charity 5x5x5=Creativity, an arts-based action research organisation, launches: Re-imagining Childhood event, in conjunction with Forest of Imagination. Re-imagining Childhood brings together a wonderful group of leading thinkers and creative professionals to explore the possibility of a different kind of childhood for our children, one that values the power of the imagination, focusing on the importance of childhood, debating child rights, human...
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View the Forest of Imagination 2017 programme here
The schools of art, architecture and science collide with the spectacular floating Aerocene sculptures that will fly high above Bushey Norwood exclusively for the Forest of Imagination this year from 30th June until 2nd July. Harnessing wind currents and the heat of the sun, these incredible air-fuelled sculptures reach up to eight metres in size and are completely emission free. The Aerocene Project, is a remarkable exploration into navigation, architecture,...
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An exciting and exhilarating adventure will take place everyday at Forest of Imagination: The Giant Tiny Ant Quest, will see small forest explorers taken on a quest to discover a Queen Ant, a wonderful ants nest and an augmented reality view of life inside an ant colony. The Tiny Giant Ant Quest is a brilliant collaboration between Anthony Head, Bristol Zoo Gardens, The House of Fairy Tales and...
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