A touring pavilion activated by artists & communities.
Wiggle Wonderland is a timber-framed, open-air gallery that can be adapted to display the works of artists and communities in different locations. From hosting live performances to workshops, each install of the pavilion evolves and is shaped by people and place, and collaboration and co-creation are core to the project.
After its launch at Brainchild in 2021, with support from Arts Council England, the pavilion has been to Honilands Primary School in North London in collaboration with DYSPLA, where it exhibited large-scale poetry created by neurodivergent pupils. The pavilion became an outdoor classroom and pupils performed their poetry to their peers and families over the term.
In 2022, Wiggle Wonderland was at the London Festival of Architecture in St Giles square by Tottenham Court Road station, supported by Almacantar.
The pavilion displayed 57 slogan posters created by children and young people on their dreams for future cities, created during workshops across London schools and an open call from individuals and community groups including Rumpus Room, Blackhorse Responders and Protest Press. Over the month the pavilion hosted workshops led by Leap then Look, Fandangoe Kid, Maya Kincaid, environmental collective A+E, Grrrl Zine Fair and Matilda Ellis. They interpreted the LFA theme ‘ACT’ as the important ‘act of making, creating and dreaming up new cities, worlds and futures’.
In July-August 2023, the pavilion was installed at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, as part of The New World, produced by Wild Rumpus. For the artwork, Lucy collected childhood memories of nature and play from an open call. The colourful landscapes and abstracted shapes on the banners are intertwined with these memories. Visitors were invited to add their favorite memories of play onto the installation.
In September 2023, Wiggle Wonderland was at London Design Festival, hosted by All in Awe.
Commissioned by Brompton Design District as part of the programme curated by Jane Withers Studio exploring Conviviality – The Art of Living Together. All in Awe ran a programme of creative community workshops with local people and charities to explore and express the themes of loneliness and togetherness. The artwork displayed was by artist and designers Sarah Boris and Stinsensqueeze, who interpreted workshops results and used data from charities as a starting point for their designs.
We're excited to share that the Wiggle Wonderland pavilion is currently at Dulwich Picture Gallery as part of A Summer of Play.
For this install, Impressions of Nature and Play, Lucy worked with Reception, Year 1 and 2 children from local schools to create the artwork on the pavilion’s banners. The children foraged for natural materials such as leaves, sticks and used foliage from Dulwich Picture Gallery’s own gardens to make cyanotype prints.
Observing their foraged materials and photographs of the gardens, they drew into scratch boards and participated in collaborative printmaking techniques. Over the summer, Dulwich Picture Gallery is developing and testing their new family programme within the pavilion, alongside events devised by play specialists Sarah Marsh and Stephanie Jeffries to help shape their Open Art project. The artwork will change mid-August and is created by local family groups.​​
Head to their website to learn more about the free creative workshops inside the pavilion.
Wiggle Wonderland was founded by architectural designer Beau McCarthy (he/him) and artist Lucy Grainge (she/her).
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Beau graduated from Central Saint Martins with a Bachelors in Architecture and a Masters in Architecture from Glasgow School of Art. He works as a freelance 3D designer and Art Director across film and TV, festival design and as an Architectural Designer. In these roles, he’s instrumental in conceptualising, designing, and creating sets that incorporate high-quality 3D visualisations and construction drawings. His clients include commercial galleries, Glowedup, BBC, Channel 4 and Netflix.
Beau’s interests lay within the public realm and temporal spaces used to engage the audience and aims to bring joy and celebration into the built environment. He designed the Wiggle Wonderland pavilion and re-designs it to meet the site's opportunities and constraints. Beau prepares all required documentation within the public realm and on private land for the local authority and the client, including surveys, visualisations and construction drawings.
Lucy is an artist-designer from Manchester based in London. Her practice explores colour, shape and pattern working across printmaking, illustration and installations. Lucy is also an arts facilitator, interested in collaborative and community centred projects.
She has worked within community arts settings for 7 years on employability arts programmes with young people, intergenerational projects, in schools and healthcare settings which was a catalyst to launching Wiggle Wonderland. Her clients include Wellcome Collection, National Theatre, Rumpus Room, Selfridges, Artsadmin, Royal Society of Sculptors. Lucy’s role in Wiggle Wonderland is producing, leading on engagement and workshops, co-ordinating the artwork and doing lots of admin!
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