Student helps school children create art for the Horniman gardens
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MA Art and Ecology student Aristeidis Lappas worked with Year 9 students from Conisborough College to create artwork for the Horniman's gardens, as the museum marks its 125th anniversary.
Artist Aristeidis Lappas with one of the boards at Art in the Gardens. Credit: Horniman Museum and Gardens.
Aristeidis Lappas, MA Art and Ecology student at Goldsmiths, ran four creative workshops for pupils from Lewisham secondary school Conisborough College. They drew inspiration from visiting different habitats in the Horniman Gardens – which have been created to encourage biodiversity – as well as sketching animal specimens from the Horniman's Handling Collection.
The students then created the artworks inspired by nature in both the Horniman's gardens and collections, which they finished by adding watercolour and oil pastel back at school.
Another of the boards with the school students' design on display. Credit: Horniman Museum and Gardens.
Leading the workshops, Aristeidis was struck by how much the students connected with the plants they were working with, and how they were able to express their understanding of the natural world through their artwork.
The project aimed to engage young people with the natural world and celebrate biodiversity, especially in the context of threats to the natural environment and climate crisis. "I believe projects like these are incredibly important in building a way of relating to the environment in more embodied ways, rather than just reading the news, for example," Aristeidis explains.
When you spend some time with these more-than-human beings, you can empathise with them when something is not working right. For example, there is real grief in seeing all the grass fields now dried up.
Aristeidis Lappas, MA Art and Ecology student
The resulting five boards showcasing the works produced have been on display from late June, and will continue to be on show into October 2026. Aristeidis said of the final pieces, "There is such a vibrancy to the work; a sense of abundance and aliveness. All the love and appreciation these show towards the more-than-human world give me hope for the future."
Another of the artworks on show in the Horniman gardens. Credit: Art in the Gardens, credit Horniman Museum and Gardens.
Previous Art in the Gardens collaborations between Goldsmiths MA Art and Ecology students and Conisborough College pupils have taken place in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Ros Gray, Programme Director of the MA Art and Ecology, said: "Art in the Gardens has been a fantastic project for the MA Art & Ecology to be involved with. It has enabled our students to gain important professional skills through working with the Horniman Museum and experience in designing and delivering workshops with pupils at Conisborough College that are very meaningful in terms of cultivating young people's artistic skills, ecological awareness and well-being. It's terrific to see the results being enjoyed in the Horniman Gardens by such a wide audience."