Wembley Park, home to thousands in North West London, has launched a new, free open-air photography exhibition, The Living Neighbourhood, marking 10 years of change documented by commissioned photographer, Chris Winter.
The exhibition features 16 large-format photographs displayed across landmark locations throughout the neighbourhood, including Olympic Way, Market Square and Wembley Park Boulevard. Spanning images captured between 2017 and 2025, the collection traces Wembley Park’s evolution into a residential neighbourhood where the built environment and landscape sit closely alongside everyday life.
Documenting each stage of the neighbourhood’s transformation as Wembley Park’s commissioned photographer for over a decade, Chris Winter’s images capture the physical change across the 85 acres: rising buildings, new public and cultural spaces, and the completion of Union Park. They linger on quieter moments that reveal a place finding its rhythm, from wildlife settling into new habitats to residents at ease by the water and children playing across large-scale artworks embedded into everyday public space.
Across the exhibition, Winter’s work traces the relationship between architecture and ecology as it unfolds over time. Images of damselflies resting among aquatic planting sit alongside reflections of residential buildings in pond water. A bumblebee moves through wildflower meadows designed to support biodiversity, while cherry blossom reframes the Wembley Stadium arch each spring. A pair of Egyptian geese, settled in Union Park since its opening, rest by the South Pond, their unhurried presence suggesting a landscape that feels familiar and undisturbed.
Other photographs focus on the human scale of a place often associated with spectacle: a lone girl crossing Lois O’Hara’s Think Independently, Together floor mural; a child engaging with the fountains in Arena Square; residents sitting quietly by the water in Union Park, watching time pass. These scenes present Wembley Park not as a destination defined by constant activity, but as a place shaped by routine, pause and ease.
The exhibition also reflects on heritage as part of everyday life. A neon silhouette of Freddie Mercury illuminates Pink Parking; the stepped finials of the Grade II listed Wembley Arena rise against a clear sky; restored K6 telephone boxes are repurposed as micro-galleries. Throughout the collection, Winter’s eye returns to moments where permanence and change sit side by side, and where the monumental becomes part of the ordinary.
Chris Winter reflects: “When I first started photographing Wembley Park, there were over twenty cranes on the skyline and the landscape changed week by week. What strikes me now is how nature has woven itself into every corner: the wildlife, the planting, the way light moves through the spaces. I’ve photographed in some of the world’s most extreme environments, from the Antarctic to the Gulf, but there’s something remarkable about documenting a place as it comes to life.”
The exhibition comes at a point when Wembley Park has moved beyond its most intensive phase of construction and into a period defined by everyday use. With Union Park now complete and a growing residential community in place, The Living Neighbourhood reflects on what it means to inhabit a place once known primarily for sporting and music events.
Claudio Giambrone, Head of Cultural Programming at Wembley Park, who curated the exhibition, comments: “Chris has been our visual storyteller for a decade. His work captures something essential about what we’ve been trying to build here: homes and public spaces, and a place where both the built and natural environment evolve at their own pace, one complementing the other. This exhibition is a thank you to Chris and an invitation to see Wembley Park as it is now, a living neighbourhood that continues to evolve.”
The Living Neighbourhood forms part of the Wembley Park Art Trail, a collection of permanent and temporary artworks embedded across the neighbourhood’s public spaces. The trail brings art into everyday routes and encounters, encouraging moments of discovery alongside daily movement. The exhibition is free, fully accessible, and runs until 30 April 2026.
