Harbourside Hop for The Wild Escape

 Young explorers joined in the Scottish Maritime Museum’s Harbourside Hop, staged as part of The Wild Escape, the largest ever collaboration between the UK’s museums.

The Scottish Maritime Museum on Irvine Harbourside is one of 500 museums taking part in The Wild Escape.

Produced by Art Fund, The Wild Escape aims to inspire hundreds of thousands of children to visit museums and respond creatively to the threat to the UK’s natural environment by looking for animals featured in museum collections and creating their own wildlife artworks.

The Museum’s Harbourside Hop for The Wild Escape began with a walk along the Harbourside led by Claire Munro, Learning and Access Manager, and Elliot Melton, Learning and Access Assistant, at the Museum.Picking up binoculars and magnifying glasses, the young explorers immersed themselves in the sights and sounds of the local area, getting up close to wildlife.

Inspired by what they saw, it was then back to the Museum to create artworks of their favourite creature from the Harbourside.

The Harbourside artworks will now go into The Wild Escape’s epic scale digital artwork of an imaginary landscape featuring the animals created by children all over the country, inspired by the collections of hundreds of UK museums.

The collective artwork will be unveiled on Earth Day – Saturday 22 April.

Claire Munro, Learning and Access Manager at the Scottish Maritime Museum, says:
“We were delighted to take part in The Wild Escape with our Harbourside Hop exploring the nature on our doorstep.

“The Garnock Estuary is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) so The Wild Escape presented us with a great opportunity to create another fun and educational activity for our younger visitors, as well as include their colourful interpretations of Irvine Harbourside’s biodiversity within a UK-wide project and artwork.”

Jenny Waldman, Director, Art Fund, said:
“The Wild Escape aims to change children’s awareness and understanding of biodiversity loss. By being at the centre of a co-created epic-scale digital artwork, and thanks to the support of Arts Council England, The Wild Escape will show how the UK’s museums can encourage new forms of creativity, encouraging children to take ownership of one of the defining challenges of our lives. The risk to our precious wildlife.”

The Wild Escape is led by the Art Fund in a ground-breaking partnership with the WWF, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, National Trust and English Heritage.

 www.scottishmaritimemuseum.org
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Issued on behalf of the Scottish Maritime Museum by
Joanna Harrison, Mobile: 07884 187404

For Art Fund:
Lucy Hawes or Zosia Gamgee, Art Fund
lhawes@artfund.org / zgamgee@artfund.org

Lauren Butcher, Bolton & Quinn
lauren@boltonquinn.com