The 45 beautiful images making up the exhibition are taken from The Wild Escape, a major creative project for museums and schools inspired by the wildlife found in museum and gallery collections, led by the Art Fund.  Taking place from January to July 2023, and building towards a nationwide moment on Earth Day 2023, The Wild Escape invites primary school children, ages 7-11, to find a favourite animal in their local museum and create an artwork imagining it coming to life. Their pictures will be brought together in an epic collective artwork unveiled on Earth Day, 22 April.

At King’s Cross the animals from the Wild Escape have found a temporary home in the estate’s outdoor exhibition space. Mounted art benches feature a curated combination of artwork specially created by UK school children, plus inspirational contributions from some well-loved UK artists including Yinka Shonibare, Es Devlin, Mollie Ray and Rana Begum. The London Wildlife Trusts’ Camley Street Natural Park sits on the canal in King’s Cross, and they have contributed beautiful photography of just some of their animal visitors. The British Library, situated just moments away from the exhibition, has contributed remarkable animals from their collections which can also be seen in their forthcoming exhibition Animals: Art, Science and Sound.

The Wild Escape exhibition at King’s Cross is part of the Outside Art Project, which turns King’s Cross into one of the largest outdoor gallery spaces in London. The always-on, always-free, and always open art is displayed on double sided gallery benches on the streets of N1C.

Photo credit: John Sturrock