Exeter Science Centre

Exeter Science Centre’s project, Our Positive Future, aimed to create a hyper-local, tourable and impactful community engagement tool, adapted from its first Our Positive Future Event in St Thomas in 2025. The ambition was to reach a range of residents, particularly from Exwick and nearby areas, and create a daytime and evening event with a lasting legacy of a mural and poem for Exwick, which would lead onto discussions, opportunities and positive action within Exwick around biodiversity, urban liveability, equality and other local issues.

On Saturday 7th February in Exwick Parish Hall, the team created daytime and evening events, which included:

• A lively creative drop-in event (collaging, sciences demos, feedback space, co-created community mural)

• A facilitated evening session exploring ideas generated during the day

• A shareable package of ideas, creations and connections for the community

As well as the creative practitioners running the sessions, they also hosted the local community builder Rachel Gilmore, who spent the day chatting to residents and sharing about opportunities in the area, and a representative from FLOW orchard (Emma Welton), who spoke with visitors for part of the day and shared a display describing the project.

The commission supported ESC’s mission to highlight science as an important part of culture and society more broadly, and this event showed that science and the arts can result in a hopeful, imaginative and fun experience for people of all ages.

https://exetersciencecentre.org