Saturday Art Workshop: Gathering Landscapes with the Heavy Water Collective

The day will begin with a guided tour of the exhibition, offering insight into the featured objects and the ways they have informed the Collective’s practice. You’ll then be invited to use the displays as a source of inspiration to craft your own artefacts and creative pieces. 

You’ll start off by learning how to make vessels from jesmonite, using a fabric armature as a base to make organically shaped vessels. You’ll then work with clay to make objects that reference artefacts on display in Gathering Landscapes, playing with shape and pattern. Finally, you’ll decorate your vessels and artefacts using relief techniques, as well as ink, pencil and paint. 

This workshop forms part of the programme of events complementing the exhibition Gathering Landscapes, at Weston Park Museum from 27 November 2025 until 1 November 2026. 

The Heavy Water Collective (Maud Haya-Baviera, Victoria Lucas and Joanna Whittle) respond to archives and collections to create artworks and exhibitions that interrogate narratives in a contemporary context. Since 2020, they have developed exhibitions with Site Gallery, Graves Gallery and Bloc Projects in Sheffield; Freelands Foundation, London; g39, Cardiff; GroundWork Gallery, Kings Lynn; Hanover Project, Preston; and Sovereign Design House, Huddersfield. They have worked with collections and archives across the UK, including Special Collections at Cardiff University; Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge; Sheffield General Cemetery Trust, Sheffield; Special Collections, University of Leeds; Lancashire Archives, Preston; Heritage Quay, Huddersfield and Sheffield Museum Trust.