During our monthly Discover Art! session in February 2026, young people aged 7-11 had the chance to work with exhibiting artist Jennifer Vanderpool, reflecting on their ideas about community, and what it means to be a member of a community.
Jennifer Vanderpool’s exhibition Bread and Roses – Welbeck’s Untold Stories explores the history of coal mining at Welbeck and the impact on local communities following the closure of the mines. The floor-to-ceiling installation of imaginary realism artworks spans across all three rooms of the gallery, and includes video interviews with former miners, members of the mining community and Welbeck residents and staff.
In the session, Vanderpool and Ruth Waller, a member of the Harley Foundation’s Education team, spent time with a dozen students exploring ideas about the meaning of community, to create a large artwork. Participants first selected vintage imagery of the Welbeck Estate and surrounding communities. These images were projected onto drawing paper, allowing them to be rearranged and traced to create a giant map of an imagined neighborhood. During the interview part of the session, Vanderpool asked the children questions about how they define community and what community means to them.
This video documents the artwork participants created during the workshop and offers an audio sampling of their reflections on community and being a community member.