The art of Aardman: handmade magic

Aren’t we all looking for love and authenticity? With that in mind, we can learn an incredible amount from the Aardman studio in Bristol, UK. They are truly the masters of the patience, precision and attention to what you love. The utmost dedication and craftsmanship that goes into creating their animations is amazing. You can now experience this attention, craftsmanship; and authenticity in the NorthernLight designed exhibition The Art of Aardman, Shaun the sheep and friends.

The magic of the art at Aardman has always been about keeping their inner child. Spontaneous, tongue-in-cheek, full of character. The exhibition in Forum Groningen, the spectacular culture mall in The Netherlands, will give you a behind the scenes view of the world famous, four times Academy Award winning animation studio, creators of Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Chicken Run. We feel privileged to have worked on the design of the temporary exhibition and be submerged in their artwork for the past months. It has been an absolute pleasure.

At NorthernLight we very much wanted the exhibition to reflect the feeling of the Bristol Aardman studio, a messy labyrinth full of joy and craftsmanship; overwhelming, full of life, unexpected scenes around every corner, including secret hide-outs where you can master your own animation skills or step into a life size stage set. One of the highlights of the exhibition is the insight it gives into the animators’ process, making around 50 images a day. That equates to about 2 seconds of animation per day! “We hope it stimulates the creativity, which comes very natural to a child, but tends to get lost as we age”, says NorthernLight creative director Steven Schaeken. The handmade puppets are accompanied by everything from early character sketches, original wonderfull scribbles, miniature stage-sets to more spectacular work like the 5m tall pirate ship from the 2012 feature film, The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

Special attention has gone into COVID proofing the exhibition, in lay out, design of interactives and practical details. We would like to thank the Forum Groningen to have invited us for this adventure in these challenging times. We would like to thank Brandwacht and Meijer to make our designs come to live, Jasha and his team to take care of all the minutious work of text labeling and wall graphics, Lichtpunt for the lighting design and of course museum Art Ludique and Aardman Studios for providing the magic.