Art, birds, beasts and Byron is helping support group in Mansfield

Photo of some of the exhibits of the Green Power exhibition at Newstead Abbey
Some of the exhibits of the Green Power exhibition at Newstead Abbey

Art work by members of a support group at Mansfield Museum has gone on show at Newstead Abbey in an exhibition called Birds, Beasts and Byron.

The Green Power group regularly meets at the museum and uses art inspired by the venue’s natural history collections to help vulnerable woman build their confidence and self-esteem through creative expression, as a kind of ‘Art on Prescription’.

The group evolved out of the two-year Art Power group that was set up in 2022 and ran with a similar objective.

In September last year, Green Power visited Newstead Abbey and forged a creative partnership with the poet Lord Byron’s former home, and the flora and fauna that are found there and were part of Byron’s life.

It led to various pieces of artwork inspired by both the museum’s natural history collections and the abbey. Now this work has gone on display at the abbey’s Project Lab, next to Byron’s study. The exhibition runs until until Easter.

Working with freelance artists, Dawn Ireland, Michelle Reader and Beth Thompson, Green Power participants have created various artworks.

They include a textile hanging using recycled materials and reflecting on the museum’s bird taxidermy collection. They have also created tufted rugs of their own beloved domestic animals.

Other artworks draw on the animals that featured in Byron’s life, including Boatswain, his beloved dog, and a bear that he famously took with him to Cambridge in defiance of their no dogs rule. 

Users of the group responded to Byron’s romantic poetry and critiqued his well documented adultery and mistreatment of women, resulting in poems by various group members which are recorded for the Newstead exhibition.

Tamsin Greaves, who co-ordinates the group and co-curated the exhibition, said: “The Green Power group is continuing the valuable work of its predecessor, Art Power, with a focus on the power of nature for healing.

“The project has seen women who arrived anxious and apprehensive and who are now empowered artists speaking their truth.”

More details about the exhibition can be found at on the museum website (link opens in new window).

Published: February 4th 2025