The Awekids Grasslands Village: Wild Worlds at Chester Zoo
Gemma Gibb, Associate Editor
Never experienced the noises of plants? Fancy a sensory safari with a twist this summer? The new Awekids Grasslands Village at Chester Zoo is the place to head. Wild Worlds is a new, summer-long, arts, science and garden festival, full to the brim with mesmerising artistic installations and action packed events.
The Awekids Grasslands Village has been created by multidisciplinary artists Fabric Lenny, Steve Symons, Jason Singh and David Hughes. This vibrant audio visual walk reveals the extraordinary sounds plants make, which have been recorded using a number of sonic technologies and then turned into music. It has been created to help cure ‘plant blindness’, revealing the fascinating and hidden lives of plants and their relationship with animals and people.
Enjoy being surrounded by the sounds, colours and shapes that the artists have brought to the fore. Wander through a wooden tunnel and listen to beautiful sounds generated by plants then have a go at creating your own plant sounds in the interactive spaces.
Between 11am and 4pm from 30 July to 3 August, meet artists extraordinaire Jason Singh and Fabric Lenny. Watch and help them make new audio and visual plant-inspired artwork in and around the Awekids Hide. Find out more about how they created the Awekids Grassland Village and the part that plants and their data played in its creation.
It’s well known that Chester Zoo cares for over 21, 000 animals, many at risk of extinction. It also, however actively conserves some of the rarest plant species (including caring for a national collection of orchids, cacti and nepenthes) and trees. With one in eight plant species also currently endangered we love that Wild Worlds celebrates the incredible worlds of both animals and plants alike.
