Dinton Pastures won’t just be a place to walk your dog or take in the spring air, it will be transformed into a creative, living gallery, thanks to the vision of two extraordinary people.
Dr. Penny Hay and Andrew Grant, co-founders of Forest of Imagination, are international change-makers whose ideas reshape how communities experience nature, creativity, and learning. Together, they’re bringing their award-winning creative project to Wokingham’s Dinton Pastures.
Forest of Imagination isn’t just about art. It’s about access. It’s about showing that creativity is a fundamental human right, not a luxury reserved for gallery-goers or the privileged few. It is also a reminder that nature and imagination aren’t just beautiful things; they are essential to our happiness, health, and sense of belonging.
“This isn’t art for art’s sake,” explains Dr. Penny Hay.
“It’s about building a more imaginative and inclusive world, starting with the spaces right outside our doors.”
As the world’s first Professor of Imagination at Bath Spa University, Hay has spent her career championing for the right of every child and adult to live a creative life. Her work in education, research, and the arts invites everyone to have a conversation about the importance of imagination, creativity and nature in our lives. Forest of Imagination is playful, open, accessible and filled with wonder and delight.
Grant, International Landscape Architect and Royal Designer for Industry, is best known as the award-winning designer of Singapore’s iconic Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay, one of the most visionary examples of urban ecology in the world.
His work has featured in the BBC’s Planet Earth series and has earned global recognition for the way it reimagines the relationship between people and the natural world.
For Grant, Forest of Imagination is about bringing those big ideas back home.
“We wanted to create something that feels magical but deeply rooted in place,” says Grant.
“Dinton Pastures is full of biodiversity – birds, insects, wildflowers – and every installation is inspired by this. It’s a reminder that beauty and creativity already live here and we’re inviting the community to see it with fresh eyes.”
Forest of Imagination is transforming Dinton Pastures into a space where nature, art, and community meet. Designed for people of all ages and backgrounds, this living gallery isn’t behind glass or within walls, it’s under the open sky, rooted in the local landscape, and open to all.
Schools and then the public were welcomed and could discover installations including giant insect antennae’s, inspired by the insects that inhabit Dinton Pastures, designed by artist Matt Leece.
A towering installation of playful, Biodiversity Totems, each topped with a creature from the local area. Designed by landscape architect, Andrew Grant, Royal Designer for Industry or shade under the Forest Shelter, designed by Carpenter Oak, an outdoor classroom that will hosting workshops throughout the weekend, and will remain at Dinton to be used as an outdoor learning and community space as a legacy of Forest of Imagination.
This is particularly important at a time when support for the arts is shrinking, and public access to creative experiences is too often unequal. Forest of Imagination makes a clear statement that creativity and the arts should not be determined by income, it belongs in our everyday lives, our green spaces, our schools, communities and neighbourhoods.
By bringing this event to Wokingham, Hay, Grant and the Forest of Imagination team are doing more than just showcasing installations, they are planting ideas – ideas about what’s possible when we treat imagination and biodiversity as essential in civic innovation, to explore imaginative solutions in the face of the ecological emergency. Ideas that explore the kind of world we want to live in and who gets to shape it.
Joining the team at Wokingham Borough’s Forest of Imagination in May is Andrew Amondson, an international artist and filmmaker whose projects span Berlin to California. His work turns everyday places into extraordinary stories, where benches become stages and trees hold secrets. At Forest of Imagination, Amondson’s immersive environments invite visitors to slow down, look closer, and rediscover the wonder in the world around them.
For more information, visit: https://www.forestofimagination.org.uk/wb/
By Hannah Newton
