Cast your eye over this cluster of cheering images from the new issue of Positive News magazine, which has just landed
The new issue of Positive News magazine is out now, and features a host of stunning photographs from contributors around the world. Here are five joyful images you’ll find in the magazine – subscribe here to enjoy the issue in full.
1. Things are looking up for a young museum-goer in London
Sensory playscapes urge children to imagine, play and design at the Young V&A – and the approach has scooped the institution the title of UK’s ‘museum of the year’. It was awarded the title from the charity Art Fund for promoting creativity in children while engaging with one of London’s most deprived communities.
As we explore in this issue’s news section, as well as bragging rights, the Young V&A – formerly the Museum of Childhood – won £120,000, which is the single biggest museum prize in the world. Art Fund’s director Jenny Waldman described the Young V&A in Bethnal Green as “the world’s most joyful museum”, and said it had “completely reimagined” the museum concept.
Photograph: David Parry/Young V&A
2. In the Netherlands, a champion ‘tile whipper’ celebrates with his son
The Dutch Tegelwippen (‘tile whipping’) competition is designed to green streets and gardens by removing paving slabs, concrete, tarmac and gravel. Whippers are encouraged to submit photos of their transformed spaces, and each month a panel of judges selects the best. Jelmer – pictured here with his son, Abel – is among the worthy winners of the title Whipper of the Month. He smashed up slabs and wheelbarrowed them through his home in Groningen to create his edible garden of herbs, squashes, salad crops and fruit. You can feast on a photo essay about the competition in our new issue.
Photograph: NK Tegelwippen
3. This creative teacher leads art sessions among the wildflowers
Eddie Rixon is one of the farmers we meet in our ‘get on my land’ feature, exploring how landowners are opening up their spaces with nature connection in mind. He developed a 30-year strategy to restore pastures and wetlands to build up the agritourism offering of his farm near Thame. But when Rosie Bradon (pictured above), a teacher at his daughers’ forest school, approached him last year about establishing an art centre, he realised he could make something happen sooner. The pair set up a yurt in an unproductive field that had been used for grazing sheep, launching an art forest school – Renboga. Attendees work away, surrounded by wildflowers, in what Rixon describes as a “lovely, sociable, community-based setting”.
Photograph: Will Elsom
4. A smile that signals 60 years pursuing a boisterous butterfly
Matthew Oates became captivated by the purple emperor when he spotted one for the first time as a boy. He’s studied the butterflies diligently ever since, devoting his life to trying to unravel the emperor’s secrets. Oates is among the wildlife lovers featured in our cover story this issue. Whether sparked by childhood curiosity or an impulse to help species at risk, these people all feel a strong affinity to a particular kind of UK wildlife. Beguiled by birds, hooked on hedgehogs or obsessed with orchids, they show what’s possible when we narrow our focus – and truly take nature to heart.
Photograph: Harry Lawlor
5. The woman who’s found joy in dispensing literary first aid
Fresh from opening a London branch of the Poetry Pharmacy, peddling literary first aid to a new generation from the most famous shopping street in the world, founder Deb Alma explains this issue why poetry is in motion.
Both from its new London outpost and original shop in Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire, the Poetry Pharmacy offers tonics to all sorts of emotional ailments. Calm, comfort, inspiration: whatever you’re searching for, there’s a book of poetry, philosophy or psychology to help you find it.
When prose fails, often only verse has the answer, says Alma. “At weddings and funerals, it’s a poem that’s read,” she points out. “It’s the art that people in states of heightened emotion turn to.”
Photograph: Jonny Keeley
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