'Bizarre' Leamington Spa mural unveiled from children's designs
A new 70m (77yd) long mural designed by children and depicting animals doing human activities has been unveiled in Warwickshire.The piece in Strathearn Gardens, Leamington Spa, is called Hope for Humanity and was designed and curated by local street artist Tim Robottom with support from lead artist Gordon Landsburgh.The mural joins more than 20 pieces in the Leamington Mural Festival, a year-long community street art trail."I worked with year five and six at Milverton Primary School to generate some ideas and concepts and kick off the creative process," said Mr Robottom.
"It's pretty bizarre but there is a narrative behind it."[I was] getting them to come up with drawings of animals paired with human activities to try and emphasise how bizarre some of the things we do are, particularly to the environment."
Mr Robottom said the mural could be followed as a kind of story, reading from right to left."It starts with a squirrel with a chainsaw cutting down a forest to make way for a building site, which is depicted with some boarding around some blocks of flats that are being constructed," he said."There are two pigeons looking at a hole, they're wearing high-vis vests and hard hats and there's also a slug to emphasise the slow nature of the construction industry."Following on from that, other animals include a tortoise driving a truck, a toad security guard and a "big fat cat".
The mural was part-sponsored by Warwickshire county and district councils as well as not-for-profit group Art Friends Warwickshire.Mr Robottom said the mural also aimed to show the inequalities in society."We're seeing more and more in the news about how multi-millionaires are embarking on these crazy projects while people are living on the streets and going to food banks," he added."I was absolutely amazed at how clued up the children are aged nine, 10 and 11...they know a lot about what's going on in the world."I encouraged them to inspire me."
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