Wood Group is supporting the UK’s National Centre for Children’s Books’ exciting new exhibition entitled Comics – explore and create comic art at Seven Stories in Newcastle upon Tyne, showing until June 2018 before touring across the UK.
The exhibition celebrates the creativity of today’s children’s comic makers in a fun, accessible and engaging way for a family audience, harnessing the potential of comics to generate excitement for reading in children and young people. Visitors will find themselves in a comic book land on a journey to discover how a comic is made.
Seven Stories is the only place in Britain dedicated to the art of children’s books and the joy of reading, and one of just a few such places in the world. Opened in Newcastle upon Tyne in 2005, its work is enjoyed by over 150,000 people across the UK every year.
Wood Group’s industrial services business, which provides new build, fabric maintenance and decommissioning services across offshore and onshore industries such as oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, power generation, marine, utilities, transport infrastructure and building construction and refurbishment, has chosen to support the comic exhibition.
Dave Stewart, CEO of Wood Group’s Asset Life Cycle Solutions business in the Eastern region, said: “We are delighted to support Seven Stories which does vital work to inspire children of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to read, learn and achieve their own potential.
“Seven Stories is the national leader in children’s books and bringing them to life for younger audiences, providing a cultural resource for children, young people, schools and families. It’s a wonderful facility that attracts many thousands of visitors and also provides a range of excellent learning activities to promote a love of books and reading.”
Kate Edwards, Chief Executive at Seven Stories said: “We are delighted to establish a partnership with Wood Group. Working with such a prestigious company, who have a large presence in our North East home, is very exciting. They are genuinely committed to giving something back to the region’s schools and communities and we look forward to encouraging children to discover a love of books and reading together.”
Seven Stories is home to the national collection of manuscripts and original illustrations by some of the UK's finest authors and children's illustrators, including work by Judith Kerr, Philip Pullman, Enid Blyton and Nick Sharratt. A rolling programme of inspirational exhibitions, events and learning programmes realises Seven Stories’ aim to save, celebrate and share Britain’s literary heritage for children.
Ahead of the launch event for the exhibition, the first learning visit took place with school pupils from Monkseaton Middle School, Whitley Bay. The schools learning offer and outreach programme commencing in the autumn term, will encourage young people to explore, experiment, create and share their own comic art.