Visit the museum that inspired one of the most famous stop motion duos this World Animation Day

Tuesday 28^th October is International Animation Day and what better way to celebrate than with a visit to The Harris Museum and Art Gallery to take inspiration from one of the greatest Animation creators of our generation; Lancashire born and bred Nick Park.

Wallace and Gromit in A Case at the Museum is the first major exhibition to be hosted following the refurbishment of the museum. This is a behind the scenes peak at the work that goes into creating the stop motion films from Nick and the team at Aardman.

You can view never before seen drawings, original set designs, original set pieces and even the Oscar that Nick won in 1993 for The Wrong Trousers. You can also strike a pose in the life size replica of Wallce and Gromit's living room. A room which was inspired by Nick's Grandmothers living room where he spent a lot of time as a child.

 

Nick reflects fondly on his time in Preston as a young boy, talking about the inspiration that people he met brought him and the comics that his grandmother used to buy him and his older brother each week that fostered the love of drawing and creating stories. The Harris was one of many inspirations that helped him with his storytelling and lead him to become the celebrated figure he is today.

We caught up with Nick to talk more about this as he celebrated the reopening of the building and his work being on display.

What does it mean to you to see your work celebrated here?

It means so much, especially as I come from Preston, I grew up here. And the Harris was always a focal point of the city, or the town as it was then. I used to come to the Harris a lot as a kid, so it's very meaningful to me. We loved looking around the exhibitions, and there was the annual art exhibition, it was a big, amateur exhibition and we used to come every year. (The Harris Open will return on 21^st February 2026). But as well as that, I found the artefacts inspiring. The history and everything, and the library. Oh, I used to scour the books in the library, because there was no internet back then, so I was always trying to find information on animation, anything to do with filmmaking. Then I studied art at Tuson College as it was then (now Preston College), I would scour the art history books and everything.

So, yes, to have an exhibition of Aardman's work and my own story with Wallace and Gromit is just incredible. I never imagined statues of my characters in the town, never mind having an exhibition, and opening the museum. Young Nick would be amazed.

I was such a quiet kid, you know. I was quite shy. I still am, I still feel that. So, it's amazing... I would be the last person that anyone would have imagined would be doing all this back then.

Have you got a particular memory of being at the Harris?

Yeah, there are certainly a few, like the art exhibition was always really special. You know, artists from around the area. Because being an artist myself, I love painting. But I do remember the first-time hearing that the ancient skulls that had been found, I think, in the river, or somewhere nearby, were all on display. As a kid, I just... I've never seen a human skull before, you know? Are they frightening or what? So, I was so intrigued, and I think my imagination went wild.

I also love the giant elk. That was always really fascinating to me. Just the history, anything that showed the history, was always interesting to me and I soaked it in.

Did any of that inspire the work you've done?

I think it probably did. I think it was not always conscious inspiration, but for example there are props in this exhibit for the museum from The Wrong Trousers. And this museum was very much in my mind when we were designing that scene. Very much so.

And that love of museums and cases full of objects, and the library itself. I said before, it was all very, very important, especially with no internet. I must return those books sometime... I think I'll have quite a fine now.

Do you hope that the exhibition inspires young creatives, and what do you hope they start to think about as they visit the museum?

When I was young, Preston felt a billion miles away from any film industry. Even the British film industry seemed too far away to imagine I could ever work in that field.

 So, I was inspired by little things I saw on TV, I remember a documentary about animation that happened to be on BBC Two or something. So, by showing the early snippets, about how a lot of our work at Aardman started, with doodles and playing around with some clay and cutouts, I hope it does show kids today that you can start very small. You know, just with a small idea or a technique that works.

A small idea is better, because small tends to be simple, and simple tends to be strong in ideas. It's easy to get too complicated.

When I started, I had very little equipment. I had an 8-millimetre camera in the 1970s, that happened to have a single frame button on it so that it could do animation. My dad explained to me one day how it's done, because he'd heard about it. So, I had a go, and I loved drawing cartoons, and just went from there, really.

But today, you can get an app for your smartphone that does animation. We're on the brink of seeing a tsunami of AI. You know, for good, for better, or for worse. And while frightening in many aspects, it's exciting in others, to see what people might do with it. Especially young people. I play with it, so I'd be very tempted if I was a young person today, and just to have a go, and... I know there are lots of issues, copyright and things, but it is exciting. How it will go, we don't know. But probably like YouTube, there'll just be hundreds of cat videos for a long time.

There are nods to Lancashire in the Wallace and Gromit films, but it seems like Vengeance Most Fowl had more in it. Was there a reason for that?

I feel like that's right, but... not intentionally. There was, in A Matter Loaf and Death, we had a sort of Yorkshire border joke in that and we expanded on it even more in this latest film. It's probably true. I think it's because the story took us out and about, you know, along the canals, and I'm sure there are canals that cross that border, so we included it more because of that.

Are there any more landmarks from Lancashire that you'd like to put into the movies?

It's funny because we did... I came up to Lancashire with the writer when we were writing The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. But the story changed after the visit. We were thinking of Blackpool Tower being the main kind of focus, because the were-rabbit was going to climb Blackpool Tower a bit like the iconic King Kong scene with the Empire State Building. And that was in the story for quite a while but then we changed it for a variety of reasons.

When you see the Wallace and Gromit statues in your hometown and exhibitions like this and coming back to see them being enjoyed by people, how does that make you feel?

I'm just so honoured, really. Because I never thought, well I still don't think, it should be really... like why is it happening to me? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that people are interested, but there's a lot more interest in different techniques nowadays and the arts.

Having a career that was art based was not a thing in the '70s. You weren't encouraged in that direction. Probably because it didn't seem like a proper job. You know? And it still isn't. I feel like I'm being paid for a hobby!

The Wallace and Gromit in A Case at the Museum exhibition runs until 4^th January in Gallery One, The Harris Museum. The Harris is open seven days a week, providing library series, and two incredible floors of history and artwork to enjoy.