Wolterton Hall, 2025

The Wolterton Arts & Culture Programme will foster opportunities for local artists, creatives and the public to engage in creative practice. For 2025, the Sainsbury Centre’s artist residency for Dutch artist collective De Onkruidenier will be based at Wolterton. The residency is curated by John Kenneth Paranada, the first Curator of Art and Climate Change at a UK museum and forms part of the art museum’s current investigative programme Can the Seas Survive Us?. The season of exhibitions and interventions, which runs until 26 October, explores our shared and increasingly precarious relationship to the sea in the face of climate change. Featuring contemporary art, historical paintings, ancient atlases and maps from across the globe, exhibitions include A World of Water, Darwin in Paradise Camp: Yuki Kihara and Sea Inside.

De Onkruidenier 

Sainsbury Centre artist residency - supported by an Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant and based at Wolterton. 

May - September 2025 

As part of the Sainsbury Centre’s Can the Seas Survive Us? season of exhibitions and interventions, De Onkruidenier, whose practice often intertwines art, ecology, and activism, will delve into themes of sustainability, regeneration and the interconnectedness of aquatic ecosystems.  The artist collective, who will be based at Wolterton, will create new artworks from the silt extracted from the lake on site. This material is sourced as part of a significant environmental initiative to dredge the lake, an essential undertaking aimed at ensuring the long-term vitality of the water body and the biodiversity it sustains, directly echoing the broader environmental concerns of the Sainsbury Centre’s ‘Can the Seas Survive Us?’ programme.

During the Sainsbury Centre residency, De Onkruidenier will develop new work and lead a series of public programmes in collaboration with original projects, Wolterton, YARMONICS, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and the Bluetits open water swimming society. The collective will create sculptural pieces and host a performance-based dinner exploring themes of soil, salt, and transformation. Work from De Onkruidenier can also be seen on display as part of A World of Water at the Sainsbury Centre.

Clay Research Group
1 May –  September 2025 

Wolterton will also host Norwich-based Clay Research Group (CRG), a collective of artists, lecturers, potters, and researchers dedicated to exploring locally sourced ceramic materials. As part of Wolterton's public programme of events and workshops CRG's project, based in part at Helgate Pottery, will delve into the geological landscape of the Wolterton estate, drawing a direct connection to the Hall's construction in 1741, when clay was extracted from the local area to make bricks for the building. Seeking to re-establish the cyclical relationship of the estate to the local community, CRG will enable artists to work with the very substance of Wolterton and its environs. To further their research and echo the estate's history, CRG will install a wood kiln at Wolterton.

Alongside this project, Norfolk-based artist Nessie Stonebridge, who is also part of CRG, will present an independent body of work throughout Wolterton’s Main Hall. This presentation will include paintings and sculptures created using clay from the same local sources and the Norfolk coast at Holme, and responds to the flora and fauna found in the Wolterton grounds. 

To enhance the visitor experience, Wolterton has partnered with Art UK, a charity showcasing the nation's art online, which will provide free online access to Wolterton's cultural assets including its historic collection which features the recently acquired portrait of Maria Walpole by Thomas Gainsborough, its architectural significance, and the contemporary art programme. Bloomberg Connects will offer physical and virtual audiences’ digital access.

Read more here.