Visions of Preston

THIS IS AN ART CALLOUT!

How could we thrive, in harmony with nature and with each other?

Send us your visions, created using any medium (eg crayons/ felt-tips/ paint/ collage/ electronic), and we will create an exhibition, to put online on our website, and put on show round Preston.

Maximum physical size A3. Send us a photo or a scan first (maximum 10MB), we’ll notify you of arrangements for collecting paper or card originals nearer to the closing date.

CLOSING DATE – Tuesday 1st September 2026

Send your digital entries any time to:

secretary@climateactionpreston.org

Please put your name, age* and an email address in with the image.

*if under 16

GUIDANCE

Think about places you know. These could be green places, or old buildings and building sites. What would you like to see there, that would be fun, or beautiful, and helpful to the planet or to wild creatures and plants?

Consider Friends of the Earth’s “Hope Starts Here” poster headings below – can you think of something in Preston that could change, to make things better? How we get around, grow food, share things?

Could that patch of land be a play space or a vegetable plot? Could that empty building be used for a workshop or youth club? Or taken down to make a green space? Could the town centre be full of plants and wildlife? Some streets become playgrounds? How could we find space for more trees? What could we do with the rooftops? Could you design a brilliant tricycle for doing shopping? Better buses with more room for prams or baggage? Is there a way of encouraging people to use cars less so it’s nicer and safer to walk around? What about the river banks – is there a way we can enjoy them more without danger to wildlife or kids? What about the dock – the biggest in Europe in its day- it’s empty most of the time now. The old railway lines?

But you don’t have to “design” something – you might just want to show some of the things you would like to see that are beautiful, exciting, uplifting, even if it’s not a “realistic” picture. Plants, creatures – do you have a favourite insect or bird? – energy, water, can be shown in lots of different ways.

Don’t worry about how good you are at drawing or painting, just get your ideas across.

RULES

  1. This is an open callout with no restrictions on who sends entries in
  2. It’s not a competition but all valid entries will be displayed on our website and displayed in our touring exhibition. We are happy to mount exhibits in simple plastic clip frames unless you frame them yourself.
  3. Valid means entries means your images are roughly in line with the guidance and not offensive or illegal. Climate Action Preston’s committee will decide whether entries are valid, and we’ll explain if we think there are any issues. We prefer you not to use AI-created images.
  4. We’ll divide the entries by age, and the first 50 under-16 entrants will receive a lovely Field Studies Council fold-out wildlife guide. We can’t afford more than that but we want to encourage you to enjoy and protect the wild creatures and plants we still have.
  5. Details of the exhibition venues will be announced over the summer, as well as arrangements for you to deliver (or possibly us to collect) the actual works for exhibiting. If we get a lot of entries we will “rotate” the exhibition so everyone gets shown somewhere. Venues we are approaching include the Harris Museum, Preston City Council town hall, the Preston Bus Station, and local community centres and libraries.