Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton hosting a free event to celebrate World Earth Day this month.

The Wild Escape takes place on Saturday 22 April 22 from 4pm to 7pm. The event is free with activities. Pay bar and food.

This event is the culmination of a collaboration between THG, Allhallows Museum and the Blackdown Hills AONB.

The national Wild Escape campaign has been inspired by Sir David Attenborough's 'Wild Isles' series. Primary school children (ages 7-11) have been invited to find a favourite animal in their local museum and create an artwork imagining its ‘escape’ back to its natural habitat. The pictures and stories children have created will be brought together in a collective work of art that imagines a better future for the wildlife on our doorstep, launched online and in museums on Earth Day 2023.

Digging foundations for the Honiton bypass in the mid 1960's unearthed startling evidence that hippopotamuses, elephants and other large mammals roamed the Honiton area around 120,000 years ago.

The leap of imagination needed to imagine East Devon with the same climate as Sub-Saharan Africa today is the starting point for an exciting creative collaboration between THG, Allhallows Museum, Honiton Primary School, the Blackdown Hills AONB and local artist Alistair Lambert.

The Blackdown Hills landscape is intrinsically connected to Allhallows Museum, where the social history of Honiton is captured through the ages and home to the extraordinary collection of hippopotamus bones unearthed nearby.

Pupils from years 4 and 5 at Honiton Primary School took part in a series of workshops led by participatory sculptor Alistair Lambert at THG, Allhallows Museum and on location in the Blackdown Hills.

The workshops took inspiration from the museum's collection and THG’s current exhibition 'Paradise Found' featuring the work of 36 contemporary artists created in response to the Blackdown Hills, retracing the footsteps of the Camden Town Group 1911-1925.

The pupils have created the Great Honiton Hippo, which has been brought back to life in the form of a sculpture,. The hippo sculpture will process through Honiton arriving at THG’s pocket park, rich in biodiversity to help mark the Earth Day celebrations on Saturday 22 April. 

The Wild Escape is made possible by lead support from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants, with additional support from Art Fund.