Young people reimagine the UK’s green spaces in new exhibition at the National Memorial Arboretum
A new exhibition created by young people from across the UK will open at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire this weekend, exploring the connections between landscapes, communities and the natural world.
Green Spaces, Shared Places: Past, Present and Future opens on Saturday 11 July as part of Art Fund’s UK-wide touring exhibition programme, Going Places, bringing together museums, artists and local communities to uncover the stories held within the places around us. Hosted at the National Memorial Arboretum, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on what landscapes can tell us about the past, what they reveal about the present and how we can help shape their future.
The exhibition has been developed through a partnership between four cultural and heritage organisations: The National Memorial Arboretum, Dales Countryside Museum, Arlington Court and National Trust Carriage Museum, and Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens (through Sunderland Culture). Young people from each location have worked alongside artists and museum teams to help shape the exhibition, sharing new perspectives on the collections, environments and stories connected to each site.
Over the past year, the young people have worked together to co-curate the exhibition, selecting stories, objects and creative responses that explore the evolving relationship between people, plants and wildlife. Featuring historic collections, site-specific interventions and new art commissions, the exhibition will be displayed across indoor and outdoor spaces, offering visitors a fresh perspective on what it means to be a ‘green place’.
The indoor exhibition brings together objects spanning hundreds of millions of years through to the present day, including a Bronze Age pot discovered by the Arboretum, a Womble toy promoting environmental responsibility from Sunderland Museum, wooden printing blocks from the Dales Countryside Museum and an early 20th century staff records book from Arlington Court. Together with creative responses from the young people involved in the project, the objects explore how people have connected with landscapes and the natural world across generations.
Alongside the touring exhibition, visitors can also experience Green Spaces, Shared Places: Gathering, a new outdoor commission by artist Emma Dawson Varughese, created in collaboration with the Arboretum’s youth steering group and pupils from local schools. The installation features pyrography artworks inspired by young people’s experiences of green spaces, alongside The Komorebi Tapestry, a collaborative artwork created using fallen leaves collected from across the Arboretum.
Green Spaces, Shared Places: Past, Present and Future is part of Art Fund’s £5.36 million Going Places programme, a series of exhibitions touring the UK. The largest project of its kind, Going Places brings together 20 museums from all four nations to share and celebrate the UK’s remarkable collections in collaboration with local communities.
Aaron Rossi, Exhibitions and Heritage Manager at the National Memorial Arboretum, said: “This exhibition has been a truly collaborative journey, bringing together young people, artists, museums and communities to explore the stories held within our landscapes. Working with our partners through the Art Fund’s Going Places programme has given us the opportunity to look at the Arboretum and our shared green spaces through a fresh perspective, shaped by the ideas and creativity of the next generation.”
Jenny Waldman, Director of Art Fund, said: “Green Spaces, Shared Places is a wonderful example of museums working together and with young people to explore and interpret collections in new ways. We’re hugely grateful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The Julia Rausing Trust for supporting Going Places, and we encourage people from Staffordshire and beyond to visit the exhibition at the National Memorial Arboretum as it begins its journey across the UK, before travelling on to Yorkshire, Sunderland and Devon.”
Responding directly to museums’ needs for more sustainable, collaborative ways of exhibiting, Going Places enables collections to travel across the country, reach more people and take on new meaning in different places.
Following display at the National Memorial Arboretum, Green Spaces, Shared Places: Past, Present and Future will tour to Dales Countryside Museum (3 October 2026 – 3 January 2027); Creative Smart City Hub Houghton and Rainton Meadows Nature Reserve, Sunderland (6 March – 26 June 2027); and Arlington Court and National Trust Carriage Museum (24 July – 7 November 2027).
Going Places is an Art Fund programme made possible with major support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The Julia Rausing Trust, with additional support from a generous group of trusts, foundations and individuals. Art Fund is continuing to fundraise to reach the full potential of the programme and make the biggest impact for museums and visitors across the UK.
To find out more about the National Memorial Arboretum, visit their website.
For further information on Art Fund’s Going Places programme, visit the link, here.
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