Visitors to Derby Museum and Art Gallery will be able to climb on a glowing crescent moon, lie under a giant rotating mobile, curl up next to a huge daffodil and be soothed by the magic of bedtime at a special free exhibition being staged in the city this month.
The fully immersive ‘Nightlight Lullabies’ exhibition is a warm and comforting experience that celebrates the unique bond formed when parents lull children to sleep.
It is being staged at Derby Museum and Art Gallery this month as part of the final leg of a UK tour.
The six-week exhibition running from September 24 features contributions from more than 150 Derby parents who attended workshops throughout 2025 and told project leaders how they get their babies to sleep.
Unique to Derby, the exhibition has been created with support and input from the city’s deaf community – along with oral histories contributed by parents attending special workshops at ArtCore, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Royal School for the Deaf Derby and The Becket Family Hub on Stockbrook Street.
The show, running till November 1, will feature two brand new artistic performances just for Derby which the public will experience for the first time.
One is ‘A Lullaby For Derby’, created using input from creative writing workshops with local parents. The other, ‘The Signing Mother’, a ‘visual vernacular’ bed time story – a type of performance art that combines physical storytelling with mime and British Sign Language – has been created with support and input from workshops held at The Royal School for the Deaf Derby, D-Youth Hub and Action Deafness. This will be played during the exhibition on a screen inside a huge daffodil-shaped bedside lamp.
Nightlight Lullabies Derby is created and produced by participatory arts organisation Murmuration Arts. Made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England, in partnership with Derby Museums, Royal School for the Deaf Derby and Derby Festé – which is returning to the city this year – it has been supported by D-Youth Hub, Action Deafness and Family Hubs Derby.
Martin Glover, artist, researcher and trainer on the project who was born deaf told of bedtime rituals in a family who are deaf.
He said: “As an undiagnosed deaf baby who went to boarding school at an early age, I had very little exposure to ‘traditional’ lullabies. I acquired British Sign Language (BSL) as an infant from older deaf children, not from my immediate family. I tend to think more visually rather than thinking using linear based – spoken – languages. An innate creativity of visual signed stories including using visual vernacular came to me more naturally than a traditional lullaby.
“I adopted a different way of settling my own babies, a more tactile way. I did ‘sing’ by signing to my hearing children following their pictorial books.”
Murmuration Arts artistic director Marion Duggan told of her own artistic inspiration behind creating the show, which has been staged around the UK.
She said: “I found my voice when I became a mother. In the early months of my daughter’s life, I struggled with sleep deprivation and the weight of responsibility that motherhood brings. When the nights were long, singing brought comfort to both my daughter and me. Through research I discovered the health benefits of singing on a mother’s mental health. Singing activates a mother’s vagus nerve, helping her drop into the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn calms the baby. A mother’s voice is one of her superpowers, a sound bridge between prenatal and postnatal life.
“A new avenue of research opened when we met Martin Glover, who shone a spotlight on the often-unheard bedtime rituals of deaf parents, highlighting the importance of touch, smell and familiar movements for babies, inspiring our new work, The Signing Mother – A Visual Vernacular For Derby.
“The well-known phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” can feel isolating for new parents, as the reality of modern parenthood is often very different. In response, we created a heritage and participatory arts programme for Derby that combines oral and video history training, recorded interviews, and creative workshops.
“Together, over 21 months we have documented the stories of Derby parents—families rooted here for generations as well as those who have come from many different parts of the world. Our aim has been to foster friendships and nurture an inclusive, safe space where parents’ diverse experiences are shared, amplified, and preserved for future generations. All the sound interviews collected will be deposited in the Derbyshire Record Office, and all BSL films will be preserved in the Media Archive for Central England (MACE).
“We hope people find comfort in the exhibition space—a bridge between parent and child, between cultures, and between ways of communicating.”
Nightlights Lullabies is also going on tour within the city itself, with two of its installations on show as part of the returning Derby Festé on September 27.
The Signing Mother – ‘A Visual Vernacular For Derby’ film – will be on show at The Museum of Making during the day, while a performance installation of The Singing Mother – A Lullaby For Derby – will be performed on the steps at the side of Derby Cathedral between 12 – 4pm.
The exhibition is on display in the World Collections Gallery at Derby Museum, at 1 The Strand, Derby. Opening times: Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm; Sunday – 12– 4pm
This press release was produced and distributed by Lucy Stephens at Penguin PR on [email protected] or call her on 0771 983 9446.
