From May to September, the gardens of Quarry Bank gardens are set to become the centre of an adventure of inter-galactic proportions...
Drifting down from somewhere far out in the black of space, helped by the children of Styal and Crossacres primary schools, a strange metal seed will settle into the exhibition space and unfurl into a beautiful interactive Clockwork Garden Exhibition.
It needs to learn the secrets that make our human gardens so full of life and joy and beauty and to take them back to its own planet which has no gardens of its own. But will the ominous Orange Moon and its shadowy Mechanical Grizzlies find the seed before it is ready to return?
Only you can hold them at bay and fill the seed with enough wonder and joy to send it safely back into space…
The Clockwork Garden exhibition will be an interactive installation filling the exhibition space with its strange metallic fronds. Within it you will find a puppet theatre in a hedge, make cloud-gazing poems, add blooms of joy to the garden, marvel at mechanical artwork, investigate garden games and the growth of plants, as well as discovering art from some brilliant contemporary artists.
Beyond in the real gardens you can delve further into this fantastical story in the Clockwork Garden Adventure. Follow a curious, illustrated map and explore the gardens finding tendrils of the Clockwork Garden, completing tasks and challenges and solving clues left by the wondrous characters of the mill, both historical and fictional…
And start the whole adventure ticking and whirring on its way the marvelous and strange characters of the House of Fairy Tales will be arriving for a special three day event. Stationing themselves in an array of beautiful tents and caravans they will bring the story to life with story-telling, artist led workshops and special investigations.
Alongside all the interactive installations the exhibition will include artworks from: Gavin Turk, Sir Peter Blake, Matt Collishaw, Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, Simon English, Georgie Hopton, Simon Periton, Marvyn Gaye Chetwynd, Andrew Rae, Josh Knowles, Ian Dawson, Steve Clayton.
The Clockwork Garden runs from 30th April until the 11th September
