LIDL, Thornbury
Growing in Thornbury
Bricks have been appointed to deliver a Public Art Programme to serve the local community in and around a new retail development for LIDL at Midland Way, Thornbury, Bristol.
Located in Thornbury Industrial Estate, the site was formerly home to a large office building, which will be/has been demolished to make way for the new major food store.
Local artist (Feral Practice) will be commissioned to deliver a public art programme on behalf of Vistry Group (the client), who are developing the site.
Artist
Client
LIDL
Local Authority
South Gloucestershire Council
Address
About the Site
The development provides a new supermarket less than a mile from Thornbury Town Centre. Thornbury is a historic market town, located north of Bristol within the Severn Vale. Traditionally a market town linked to agriculture and cloth production, Thornbury now functions as a local service centre with a mix of residential, commercial, and community uses.
The Artwork
Feral Practice is creating a new large-scale painting for the front of the store, developed through observational drawings of Thornbury’s community green spaces, including the historic Daggs Allotments, Filnore Allotments and Streamside Community Orchard.
The process of gathering images and ideas by spending time drawing in the allotments and community spaces, talking to people about what they are tending, the wildlife they see and enjoy, forms an important part of the work. From these sessions Feral Practice will build a library of images to be brought together in the final artwork.
The painting brings the supermarket and the local community into dialogue, finding common ground in the essential topic of food futures. A series of events in collaboration with growing and ecology groups will provide a bridge considering food and sustainability on different scales, from the hyper-local to the global.
About the Artist
Often people set up a divide between human and nonhuman life, and between different categories of knowledge and understanding; Feral Practice works across these barriers. They bring the experimental energy of art to bear upon the care of diverse bodies and ecologies. Through long term actions in rural contexts, in dialogue with other species and in collaboration with experts and communities, they cultivate new stories and artworks from more than human perspectives.
Employing methodologies in response to each diverse context and its participants, they often use digital technologies that augment sensory access to other than human worlds in combination with sculpture, painting, participation or dialogue.
Feral Practice’s work is widely commissioned and exhibited by museums, festivals and galleries; academic, social and environmental organisations.
Current and recent projects: Tenderbog with Laura Harrington (sculpture, audio-visual, painting) explores affective and structural parallels between peatland restoration and medicine and arises from the WaterLANDS artist residency 2023-6. Tonal 2024-5 (audio) investigates water issues in the UK through the lens of the River Tone in Somerset, funded by FCDI bursary. Rainforest Chorus (audio-visual) explores the damage and repair of temperate rainforest fragments in southwest England; supported by Kone Foundation, Finland.
Ask the Wild 2017-26 (events, audio) with Marcus Coates seeks fresh answers to human problems within the strategies of other species. Rock.Plant.Human. 2024 (sculptural sound installation, painting) explored hybrid, multispecies community for Wirksworth Festival. COMMUNE (two-screen video installation) is a story between human and ants, completed whilst artist in residence at Wysing 2023-4. Lead artist Residência Formigeiro (Residency of the Ants) 2023 for KinoBeat, Porto Alegre, Brazil (sponsored by British Council) and resulting in the exhibition CÖCÖCÖCÜ 2023 at CCMQ Porto Alegre.
Stream of Consciousness 2022 (360 VR video) touring project celebrating the River Darent in Kent and its diverse habitats. The Ant-ic Museum 2021-2 (sculpture, video, collage, publication) an exhibition guided by ants at Scarborough Museums and Art Galleries.
Feral Practice’s practice based PhD (UAL 2022) developed strategies to challenge anthropocentrism through feral participations in art with other species. The chapter Ant-ic Actions, Formica’s Forms 2025 was published by Bloomsbury in Ethical Materialities in Art and Moving Images, ed. Silke Panse.
“Growing in Thornbury responds to the town’s exceptional history of community allotments and its passion for sustainability.
Everyone needs good food to be well, but there is inequality of access to healthy ingredients, food knowledge and confidence. We hope this project will nurture connection with food growing and how it can support the life of other species as well as our own.” – Feral Practice
Events Programme
Who’s Eating Who in the Garden?
Saturday 29 August 2026
Thornbury Community Orchard
Thornbury Community Orchard grows food for human people, but who else is snacking (and getting snacked on) amid the apples and pears? This and many other questions were answered on a discovery walk around the community orchard and wildflower meadow site with artist Feral Practice, ecologist Nick Hudson of Wildpace, and the magic of magnification.
Artist Talk
Thursday 24 September 2026
The Chantry, Thornbury
Feral Practice offered insight to their artistic process and the ideas that led to the development of the new commission for Lidl Thornbury.
Hosted by Sustainable Thornbury.
Growing for the Future
Tuesday 3 November 2026
The Chantry, Thornbury
Join us to celebrate the launch of the artwork in an evening featuring an artist talk about the project, plus How to Create a Forest Garden and Ignite a Movement! with special guests Anita Roy and Helen Gillingham from multi-award winning Transition Town Wellington in Somerset.
Public Art
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