Art Club: Dead Plants Society | Free Creative Workshops Exploring Plants & Nature
This autumn, Mafwa Theatre invites you to Art Club: Dead Plants Society, a six-week programme of free creative workshops delivered in partnership with Space2.
Led by artist Denise Scott, the sessions will explore plants, biodiversity and our relationship with nature through hands-on making. Across the programme, we’ll experiment with techniques including natural dyeing, eco printing, mono printing, textiles and clay plant impressions.
The workshops form part of Dead Plants Society, a project from Space2 and Leeds Discovery Centre connecting local communities with Leeds Museums and Galleries’ remarkable herbarium collection.
Whether you’re completely new to art or already enjoy getting creative, Art Club is free and open to adults. No previous creative, gardening or plant knowledge is needed.
About the workshops
These six sessions will use plants and natural materials as a starting point for making, experimenting and sharing ideas.
With Denise, participants will explore a mix of creative processes including natural dyeing, eco printing, mono printing, textile work clay and plaster plant impressions and botanical documentation.
Alongside the making, there’ll be opportunities to share stories, memories and knowledge about plants, and to think about biodiversity, climate change and the ways our local landscapes have changed over time. The sessions are designed to be relaxed and exploratory. You don’t need to attend with any particular skills or experience, just a willingness to have a go!
Wednesdays, 16 September – 21 October 2026,
10:30am – 12:30pm,
Thackray Medical Museum
The session on Wednesday 30 September will be a visit to Leeds Discovery Centre. Transport will be provided.
Free to attend.
Open to adults.
Materials and refreshments provided.
Bus tickets available to support travel.
Spaces are limited, so early sign-up is encouraged!
About the project
Dead Plants Society is a project connecting Leeds communities with the city’s herbarium collection — around 250,000 pressed plants collected over the past 300 years from across Leeds and Yorkshire.
Led by Space2 in partnership with Leeds Museums and Galleries, the project brings together arts, nature and local knowledge to explore how biodiversity and our environment have changed over time. As part of Art Club, we’ll have the opportunity to explore some of this collection during our visit to Leeds Discovery Centre.
Dead Plants Society is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund.
About Denise Scott
Artist Denise Scott works predominantly with stitch and print, alongside her work as a gardener for nature. She enjoys incorporating found natural objects and materials that have had another life into her work, and encourages people to explore creative activities for the joy of making, without pressure to create ‘good art’.