Wild in Art’s Gratitude was an outdoor public art exhibition touring across the UK showcasing 51 sculptures all designed by individual artists and sponsored by different businesses. It’s aim was to acknowledge key workers and pay tribute to the NHS. Wesleyan awarded £35,000 towards the project and were the official location partners in Birmingham.
The exhibition started its tour in Birmingham in August 2021 and travelled to Manchester, Edinburgh and London. It consisted of 51 human-form statues all painted by professional artists reflecting on the stories and milestones during the COVID-19 pandemic. Julie Gaskell, Head of Partnerships at Wild in Art, explained:
“The installations were to honour and to show gratitude, sort of a nation’s thank-you to all key workers, so not just doctors, nurses and health care workers, but to recognise delivery drivers, people in the financial sector and all sorts of other people. The exhibition saw over 500,000 people visit.”
The COVID-19 pandemic marked a major historical event, a unique but collective experience explored through the artworks where the world was in several lockdowns. Wesleyan asked colleagues to put forward their own community heroes and two of these people were painted on two of the sculptures.
Julia continued:
“We had people bursting into tears in front of the sculpture ‘The Isolation Chronicles’ which showed snapshots of the pandemic, supermarket checkouts, nurses, vaccinations, deliveries, farming, 3D printers making visors. There was a member of the public crying in front of it holding a picture of a nurse with his dad saying ‘you held my dad’s hand when he died’. It was quite an emotional installation.
“The artists represented some fun things that happened during the stages of the pandemic, it really was a chronical of social history, it also highlighted the Black Lives Matter movement.
“We also had mirrors around the exhibition so when you walked around it reflected a thank you back to the audience. We wanted to do something that was topical, and the sculptures were really impactful. We auctioned off the sculptures to raise money for NHS Charities Together.”
Gratitude 2021 | Wild in Art from Wild in Art on Vimeo.
Charlie Langhorne, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Wild in Art, said:
“Wesleyan was an integral part of Gratitude and we were proud to work with their team. As an organisation with its heart in Birmingham it was great that Wesleyan became location sponsor. Wesleyan was able to celebrate its 180th birthday and say thank you to its colleagues and members, many of whom are frontline doctors, dentists and teachers, for their contribution during the pandemic. We’re very grateful for their kind support in making Gratitude something that was accessible to members of the public and gave some much needed light and colour to the city in the summer of 2021”.
To find out more about Gratitude, click here.
