Forest exhibition at Nottingham Castle
In May 2025 Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery launched their latest exhibition, FOREST. This evocative show brings together a powerful new collection of contemporary artworks inspired by the mystery, beauty, and symbolism of trees and woodland life. Discover how the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Castle collaborated to bring this exciting new contemporary art exhibition to Nottingham in May 2025, exploring trees, forests, and the legacy of the Major Oak.
The exhibition features six newly commissioned works made especially for Nottingham Castle, alongside artworks on loan to the city for the first time. These sit alongside rarely seen prints, drawings, and photographs from Nottingham’s own collection, including the iconic 1882 painting of the Major Oak by Nottingham-born artist Andrew MacCallum. Featured artists include Arianne Churchman, Tim Fowler, Jelly Green, Jasper Goodall, Yelena Popova, and many more, with strong representation from artists based in Nottingham and the wider region.
Through sculpture, painting, sound, and film, FOREST explores personal and cultural connections to trees and forests. Some artists will draw inspiration from lived experience of Sherwood Forest and the Major Oak, while others will reflect on the forest as a place of myth, memory, and transformation, touching on themes of grief, folklore, and climate change.
Bringing art and academia together
As part of the FOREST exhibition, University of Nottingham's Institute for Policy and Engagement co-ordinated a unique collaboration between artist Caroline Locke and researchers from across the university. The project brought together expertise from the engineering, biosciences, geography and music, highlighting the power of interdisciplinary research to support creative practice.
The team visited the Major Oak across all four seasons, capturing its changing presence through sound, film and data. This process forms the basis of a new four-screen video installation by artist and filmmaker Georgianna Scurfield, titled Forest and Frequency, which is a key feature of the FOREST exhibition. Displayed in the Square Gallery, the work brings together artistic and academic perspectives to offer a powerful, multi-sensory experience rooted in the life of this legendary tree.
Forest and Frequency film
Forest and Frequency is a series of four films by documentary maker Georgianna Scurfield that follow the Major Oak, artist Caroline Locke, and researchers from the University of Nottingham over the year in the lead-up to this exhibition.
Divided into four chapters to reflect the changing seasons, the film centres the Major Oak. It begins in summer 2024 as Locke works with University of Nottingham engineers to record the tree's natural frequency usingstate-of-the-art technology to scan and record specific data points. Subsequent films show the independent journeys of that data, both in the studio to inform Locke’s artistic work and on campus to create a 3D model from which researchers can calculate the vibration of the tree as it sways in the wind. On return visits to Sherwood Forest, we are also introduced to researchers from different academic disciplines who share their insights and relationships with woodland ecosystems.
Through conversations held in the forest, creative thinking and knowledge exchange, we see art, science and historical research intertwined in response to the presence of a single, ancient tree. At this event, attendees will have the opportunity to see the film in its entirety for the first time and also ask questions of the artists, academics and professional staff that created the project to bring the mysteries of Sherwood Forest to life.
Although the full film can only be viewed in the Nottingham Castle exhibition or at specialist screenings, you can get a preview via the trailer below:
Four faculties across four seasons
Spring
Faculty of Arts - Music
Members of the university's music department have been explring the relationship between trees, music and memory. Mo Zhou, a PhD student in the Department of Music, has also created a sound walk that will transport you back 1,000 years into the heart of Sherwood Forest. This can be downloaded free of charge by visitors as they roam the castle grounds.
Elizabeth Kelly, Associate Professor in Music Composition, has been working with groups of school children and musicians to create musical compositions that respond to the world around us. These will be performed during the closing cermony of the exhibition.
Summer
Faculty of Engineering
Using laser scanning technology, university engineers created a 3D model of the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest. The team included Sean Ince, Dr John Owen, and Dr Ali Gamra. and the data they proided informed Caroline Locke’s new artwork exploring the vibrations and structure of this iconic tree.
The digital model also enabled them to apply the techniques they use to test high-rise buildings to the Major Oak, to understand how its structure would respond to high wind events and make suggestions for its conservation and management. They demonstrated how engineering could be used to manage and mitigate the risks of large trees in public spaces and monitor tree health.
Autumn
Faculty of Social Sciences - Geography
Charles Watkins is a Professor of Rural Geography in our Faculty of Social Sciences, who specialises in the cultural and environmental geography of trees. As part of the project he met with artist Caroline Locke to explain their histories and cultural significance. He also met with members of the public at the Major Oak itself to hear their own stories and experiences of the famous tree.
Charles' knowledge informed the work of the exhibition curators too, as he spoke to them about other trees and forests and art in the exhibition. Visitors can read his book in the gallery and also hear some of his interpretations of the various works displayed throughout the gallery.
Winter
Faculty of Science - Biosciences
Despite the seemingly bare nature of winter, a lot is happening out of sight and that is exactly what researchers from our School of Biosciences. Amanda Rasmussen, Associate Professor plant ecophysiology, works on the propagation of trees, aiming to understand and improve current practice. Amanda teamed up with Craig Sturrock, Principal Research Fellow in X-ray Computed Tomography, to use the cutting-edge technology at the Hounsfield Facility to record the growth of roots on young saplings. These videos are on display in the gallery at Nottingham Castle and visitors can see how the roots form and develop, growth that is usually hidden beneath the surface made visible by modern technology.
More examples of this technique and how its used can be seen as part of the Hidden Half Project online.
Visit the exhibition
There was a public launch and preview on Friday 23 May, 6–8pm, with artists and project partners in attendance.
The main exhibition opened to the public on Saturday 24 May and runs until Sunday 2 November 2025. It is free for all annual pass holders to the Castle, otherwise standard entry fees apply.
- Photo gallery from the exhibition