York Trailblazers

In the summer of 2024, we collaborated with local artist Natalie McKeown, who designed our sculpture for the Trailblazers’ campaign. This effort was part of our initiative to raise the profile of Michael Rowntree, a local leader of good causes. The sculpture was held in Homestead Park, York.

Michael Rowntree (1919-2007), member of the globally renowned York confectionary family, held a number of senior roles in Oxfam and was Chairman from 1971 to 1977, during a time when they delivered their biggest ever aid package and set up the country’s first textile recycling plant.

Below you can read more about the project from the artist’s perspective:

“My work has always been multidisciplinary; I’ve worked across painting, printmaking, textiles, sculpture and performance – but I studied Sculpture and Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art, so the brief for this project felt like a natural fit. The description of Michael Rowntree immediately spoke to me too – I grew up in York and spent several years at the Mount School so I feel right at home with Quakers!”

When asked about Michael Rowntree, Natalie said:

“It feels like a real honour to be able to highlight Michael’s life story – as someone who seems to have really embodied the Quaker ethos of speaking and acting against injustice there’s a huge amount that it feels important to publicise, from his incredibly brave work with the Friends’ Ambulance Unit to his longstanding commitment on the board of Oxfam. Alongside his great deeds though, I loved the picture I got of Michael as a person – I was especially taken with his clear love of cataloguing the birds he saw while birdwatching; as someone who’s a bit of a collector/cataloguer of things myself some of the extracts from his diaries felt very relatable!”

You can read more about the Trailblazers project here.