Matt and Holly have been working alongside children in schools across Wokingham to co-create imaginative responses to themes of nature connection, biodiversity, and art. Each workshop has been a unique journey shaped by the students ideas, curiosity, and sense of wonder. Their collaborative artworks will be exhibited at the Forest of Imagination festival, where we’ll reunite to explore the event together and continue our shared creative journey. This evolving project celebrates children as artists and thinkers, honouring their voices and visions while fostering deep connections with the natural world through playful, meaningful, and expressive experiences.

At All Saints Primary School, Matt and Holly began the sessions with an exploration into “What is the Forest of Imagination,” letting the children lead the way. Fungi and Fish became leading themes, which led us down a path of printmaking. Participants drew their imagined Fungi or Fish, then zoomed into them with a viewfinder to explore more abstracted shapes and textures. These textures were scaled up, then turned into mono-type prints and pressed onto a large roll of paper, making one big print. The discussion moved towards describing the forest as this symbiotic, collaborative ecosystem, and the wish to work in a similar way. So, in the next sessions, the group decided to work together to make one big tree print on fabric, splitting into self-directed groups; canopy, trunk, and mycelium/roots/soil. By the end of the sessions, they were confident print-makers, but had also learnt to communicate with one another during the creative process.