Photos: Christopher Doyle
Animal Crackers.
Animal Crackers is a joyful festive animal takeover of Lyme Hall, a National Trust stately home in Cheshire. Extraordinary hand made and carnivalesque animal artworks inhabit the grand and inspiring rooms, playfully provoking visitors to dress up, sing karaoke and pretend to eat dinner with beasts!
Throughout the house animal themed art-decorations celebrate the Community groups and volunteers who made them.
The artworks explore themes around the changing human relationship with nature in the context of man made climate crisis.
Three impulses:
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and imagining Christmas Past, present and future in the context of climate crisis.
The historical context of the house and the local environment.
The energy and enthusiasm of the house team and volunteers.
I loved everything about it, the story, the beautifully made animals…what a poignant way to show Christmas.