Where We Grow: nature, nurture & childhood
About the exhibition
Where We Grow explores the powerful relationship between childhood, childcare and the natural world, from the Foundling Hospital’s 18th-century landscape to the gardens, playgrounds and green spaces that continue to shape children’s lives today.
Through contemporary art, photography, archival material and historic objects, this exhibition reveals how nature can offer freedom, imagination and belonging and asks what happens when access to it is unequal. Setting histories of childhood and perspectives from young people today alongside artistic explorations of children’s encounters with nature, Where We Grow invites visitors to consider what we need from the places where we play, live and learn.
From 18th-century seed lists and the botanical motifs woven throughout the Museum’s extraordinary Rococo Court Room Gallery, to contemporary artworks by Joy Gregory, Andy Holden, Jade de Montserrat, Mark Neville, Quentin Blake, Ruth Beale, Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, the exhibition traces changing ideas about what children need to flourish – and who gets to decide.
The show spills out into the wider Museum, where a new ‘nature trail’ uncovers unexpected connections to the natural world throughout the building, including in the Handel Gallery, a display on the pioneering London Pleasure Gardens which sheds light on how outdoor spaces have long meant leisure, sociability and shared experience.
‘Think of all the feet that have walked over this ground…’ Tracing our Tales Alumni participant
Entry to the exhibition is included with the Museum ticket. Visitors can return for free within a year of their initial visit with an Annual Pass.
Image: Andy Holden, How the artist was led to the study of nature, 2020. Photograph by Daniel Brown. Courtesy the Artist
Supported by
Foundling Museum Director’s Circle
