Birds in the Park

Although not entirely original in its conception (think Gromit Unleashed) we've taken a slightly different approach to large fibreglass animal figures. Ours are based on the Golden Pheasants that were once in the aviary of Barbara St John at Croome, and are perched in trees.

The eight models were made by Will Datson and they're just over 2m long. There were four artists working with us: Sharon Farrelly, Lucy Hutchinson, Santhanha Nguyen, and James Birkin, all of whom had work shown at the New Art West Midlands show earlier this year. They spent a day with pupils from St Barnabus school at Croome (who all seemed to know much more about Croome than I do), and used their ideas for the designs for half the birds, then their own ideas for the other four. The results are are so diverse and they are all very appealing in their own way.

Will then returned to Croome and hoisted them up into a number of trees around the park, and fixed them firmly to branches.