Rock Mill Centre began working on the Lost Species mural over a year ago. Our aim is to create a public artwork on a wall in our courtyard that will engage people with our wonderful local environment - the Centre is situated in in the middle of New Mills, high above the wooded Torrs river gorge on the edge of the Peak District. (The Centre itself opened as a visitor and community centre just over a year ago, part of its purpose is to promote environmental responsibility).
We sought advice from Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and they suggested ten species which used to live locally or who are currently endangered. From this we created a series of posters that were shown at a local Festival and at the Centre, the first one read:
"Rock Mill Centre would like your help in deciding which animals we will welcome back to New Mills! We are planning to have a mural painted on the brick portion of the wall opposite our entrance and would like you to vote on which animals it will feature.
The mural will greet people as they walk down to the Torrs and remind them of the animals that have had a home here. We are intending to have displays in the Centre that will explain how changing land use has affected animal species, and to look at how we could implement the Wild Peak initiative of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.
The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust is helping us and has drawn up the following list of animals that have lived here, or are currently at risk of being lost.
Could you please vote for the three animals you would like to be featured on the mural? The mural will be designed by a local artist in response to this poll. It will be a clean air mural using paints that absorb pollutants from the air.
Beavers, Black Grouse, Curlew, Lynx, Osprey, Red Squirrel, Salmon, Water Vole, White Crayfish, Wolves."
With almost 700 votes the top three species to be shown on the mural are red squirrel, wolves and osprey. Together they suggest people are imagining a landscape that is wooded, wild and wet.
Now that the planning application has been granted, our local mural artist, Shaun Azrak can start on his design. We are crowdfunding to further engage people with the mural - we would love people to feel they have contributed to making it happen and have a sense of ownership of the artwork.
The funding will go to paying Shaun, hiring a scissor lift, buying the carbon absorbing paint and other materials. It will also be used to buy a set of swift boxes that will be installed above the mural. These will support this species that is now on the endangered list but still returns looking for nesting sites every summer. Any extra funds we raise will be used to install additional swift boxes.
Would you like to help bring this exciting project to life?