TAS Wessex Area sponsored Salisbury Cathedral 'Our Earth' April – September 2024: Education workshops

Salisbury Cathedral is so grateful to The Arts Society Wessex for its support of the Education workshops inspired by the theme of the Cathedral’s 2024 art exhibition.

The theme of Our Earth was the domestic impact of climate change.

The exhibition of eight works focussed on the air we breathe; how the landscapes are changing; the effect on our homes; what we can hear and how the landscape can impact our mental health.

Approximately 150,000 people visited the exhibition, plus countless more who viewed the Hilary Jack sculptural installation outside in the Cathedral grounds.

The Cathedral’s Education team was delighted to receive funding from The Arts Society Wessex Area which enabled them to purchase additional resources and run the following drop-in activity workshops free of charge:

Wednesday 29 May 2024 - Promises for ‘Our Earth’

A large number of young families assembled in the Cloisters during half term and were invited to illustrate wooden slices with personal ‘Our Earth’ promises to protect the environment. These were then suspended for the duration of the exhibition from the ‘cave’ inside Hilary Jack’s artwork, Seaview, which depicts a house partially sliding down an eroded cliff.

Wednesday 31st July and Wednesday 7th August 2024 – How do you see the world?

Approximately 200 school age children enjoyed two summer holiday workshops linked to both of the Rebecca Chesney works in the exhibition which highlight the alarming decline of birds around the world: Hear the Unheard and Red, Amber, Green (pictured left)

The children had a lot of fun learning how to make and decorate their own bird viewer and paper mosaic birds.

Wednesday 14th August 2024 – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Approximately 75 young people seized the opportunity to join a workshop in the Cathedral Cloisters to design and colour their own artwork: a bag for life which they were able to take away with them. This activity was inspired by Turquoise Bag, also by Hilary Jack: a bronze sculpture that floated between the trees in the Cloister, highlighting the presence of single use plastic littering our environment.

Wednesday 28th August – Creepy Crawlies!

The final workshop of the summer was with a boisterous group of pre-school age children who were invited into the Cloisters to make their own paper bugs.

Photography by Finnbarr Webster

Rosie Wilkinson

Development Officer Salisbury Cathedral