Art of Salisbury River Park Exhibit opens in Young Gallery
The art will become part of the park once it opens
An art exhibit celebrating the creations for the Salisbury River Park project has opened in the city's Young Gallery.
The exhibition features contributions from local schools, community groups and artists and champions the unique environment, landscape and rich biodiversity of Salisbury.
Andy Wallis is from the Environment Agency and is leading the Salisbury River Park scheme told Greatest Hits Radio it's an 'exciting' part of the project.
"We knew we wanted to do a lot of community engagement and education and speaking to various people early on, it became apparent well public art is a really good way to do that," he said.
On display are numerous artistic depictions of wildlife found in the Salisbury area, as well as impressions of the River Park area once it's fully completed and in use.
There's also a large sculpture of an insect's wings, allowing us to study their intricate construction.
The exhibit is open to the public, for free, until Saturday 31st August.
Mr Wallis said the artistic side of the project serves more than just engaging with the community during a time of disruption.
"It's the opportunity to be doing a very sort of visual scheme in an urban area to help educate and the people about how important our local ecology is, how important our rivers are.
"We are phenomenally lucky in Salisbury to have a chalk stream coming through our our city. There's only 200 in the entire world," he said.
Mr Wallis added that it became clear early in the project, people didn't know a huge amount about the ecology of the river and some of the important thing that happen there.
"I'm really hoping that the project has helped sort of improve that awareness and allow people to take better ownership and care of this, this fantastic ecology."