Forest Of Imagination – Bath – Enter the Chrysalis

The caterpillar does not simply grow wings. It dissolves - almost entirely - into a biological soup. Within that soup, clusters of cells called imaginal cells survive. They carry the blueprint of what is coming. The body stirs around them, uncertain. But the imaginal cells keep multiplying, drawing together, until something new becomes inevitable - and the butterfly begins.

This is the story Forest of Imagination is telling in Bath this June…

Enter the Chrysalis - Opens at Entry Hill

Free outdoor arts event brings artists, architects and designers into Bath’s hidden landscape 13 to 21 June 2026

Forest of Imagination returns to Entry Hill, Bath this June with eight new installations, ten artist-led workshops and a ten-day programme that is entirely free and open to all. Opening Night takes place on Friday 12 June at 6pm. Schools’ days run 16–18 June.

The theme is – Enter the Chrysalis – a transformation from the inside out. A process of dissolution, renewal and emergence through which something entirely new becomes possible. Within the chrysalis, imaginal cells gather to shape the future form of the butterfly… at Entry Hill, Forest of Imagination 2026 will bring the community of the city together, collectively reimagining new relationships with nature and creativity.

Entry Hill sits on the edge of Bath, overlooking the World Heritage city and the landscape beyond. A former golf course, it has been showing the city what it could be - a place where artists, ecologists, children and communities come together to imagine a collective creative and ecological space. This year’s event is the second chapter of a three-year story towards a permanent arts and nature park; 2025 was the caterpillar; 2026 is the chrysalis; 2027 will be the butterfly.

*THE PROGRAMME

Eight installations will transform Entry Hill across ten days, alongside eleven workshops for schools, home educators, families and the public.

• Chrysalis Classroom - Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
• Chrysalis Grove - Grant Associates
• Pupa Shell - Grant Associates
• The Children’s Pavilion - Morgane Shaban & Holly Le-Var
• Perpetual Forest - Martyn Ware
• Imaginal Soup - Matthew Leece
• Harmony Garden - Community Participation

Martyn Ware - founding member of The Human League and Heaven 17, and one of the UK's most innovative sound artists - brings Perpetual Forest to Entry Hill: an immersive audio installation drawing together a retrospective of all his previous 3D soundscapes back into the hills of Bath.

Matthew Leece’s Imaginal Soup takes its name from the biological process at the heart of the event’s theme: the soup of dissolved matter inside a chrysalis, within which imaginal cells carry the blueprint of what is coming.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios bring the Chrysalis Classroom - a space for learning inside transformation, designed for children to inhabit a new kind of thinking.

Grant Associates, the landscape architects behind some of the world's most celebrated public spaces, contribute two works: Chrysalis Grove and Pupa Shell, both exploring shelter and the in-between.

Morgane Shaban and Holly Le-Var’s The Children’s Pavilion – a young person led, continuously evolving pavilion that will take shape and emerge throughout the ten day event.

Harmony Garden a collaboration with Princess Esther Selassie and Kalkidan Asnake Attafir, an international landscape architect from Ethiopia, including a co-design workshop with the local community.

WORKSHOPS

Workshops run throughout the ten days, for schools, home educators, community groups and the general public. Highlights include Becoming Creature (Lydia Halcrow), What Do the Trees Think (Matthew Leece), and Who Lives in the Forest (James Aldridge) and From Earth to Wing: A Muddy Metamorphosis (Pippa Pixley) and Earth Club (Oliver Wallace). All workshops are free. Weekdays are primarily for pre-booked schools and home educators; weekends are open to all.

TWELVE YEARES IN THE MAKING

At the heart of Forest of Imagination is a long-held vision: a permanent Art and Nature Park at Entry Hill - a living space where creativity, ecology and community belong together, for good. Every annual event is a deliberate act of imagination in service of that future.

Over twelve years, Forest of Imagination has evolved into a leading model of arts, nature and learning in public space, influencing practice locally and nationally. Its participatory pedagogy now informs new collaborations including Playful Green Planet - developed with the RSA, Eden Project and HundrED - transforming green spaces into creative learning environments across the UK.

The legacy of 2025 continues through lasting partnerships and community momentum at Entry Hill. The installations themselves embodied sustainability and circular design: timber reused, willow coppiced, and structures like the Outdoor Classroom relocated to Jamie’s Farm, extending their life and social value. Forest of Imagination positions Entry Hill as an anchor for Bath’s future cultural and ecological identity - a place for lifelong learning, imaginative inquiry and active stewardship.

“It will be a space created with the people of Bath, not just for them.” Helen Meech, local resident

“Forest of Imagination invites people of all ages into a creative dialogue about the ecological emergency and imaginative responses to a sustainable future. It nurtures ecological consciousness, intergenerational hope and creative action - encouraging communities to think imaginatively together about climate change, nature connection and social action. At its core, Forest of Imagination creates shared spaces in which imagination is valued as a way of being, relating and connecting. Bath's Entry Hill is becoming exactly this: a living landscape where art, ecology and community converge.” Dr Penny Hay, Professor of Imagination, Bath Spa University, and co-founder, Forest of Imagination

“The old Entry Hill golf course has morphed into a wonderful and welcoming green space with huge potential to become a unique Art and Nature park to serve the wider community of the city. The Chrysalis theme for this year’s Forest of Imagination sets the scene for the next life stage of this site as a venue for collective imagination and reconnection with nature.” Andrew Grant RDI, Hon FRIBA, CMLI, FRSA and co-founder, Forest of Imagination

“Like nature, this forest is both spontaneous and designed, surprising and unpredictable but safe and welcoming. It’s a wonderful antidote to all those scary fairy tales where forests are daunting and dangerous - and that's a tremendous invitation for children who are forever subject to warnings and instruction. In the forest, they - and all of us - can let our curiosity and delight run wild, confident that we will discover something, somewhere, somehow, forgetting entirely that that is what other people might

call learning. With every year that passes, the Forest of Imagination gets richer, more inviting and more necessary. Just like a real forest.” Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur, author, keynote speaker and Professor of Practice, University of Bath School of Management