Yorkshire Sculpture Park: What's in store for 2026

Set within 500 acres of historic parkland shaped by centuries of human and non-human activity, YSP is perfectly placed to hold conversations about land, material, memory and community. From June, and at the heart of the new programme, YSP hosts a landmark exhibition in collaboration with Tia Collection.

It is Dr Alex Hodby’s first full year as Head of Programmes, although she was interim head previously, and something that has been years in the making.

"I am already thinking well ahead to 2027 and even 2028 and beyond,” says Hodby. “It is a researched based process and for me deciding which artists to approach and working with other galleries – I find that the most joyful part of the process. It’s about building relationships over many years and exploring the incredible possibilities.

“We are really centred on working with the artists and that approach means we create a programme that is always relevant because artists are so atuned to what is going on in the world now. That creates the most incredibly meaningful and resonate programme.

“Of course the sculpture park has the legacy of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth but we bring that into the 21st Century thinking about how artists are working with an incredible array of materials, how those materials themselves have strong resonances and meaning.

“We are super excited about what people will think and what conversations they will have and the creativity that it will inspire in everyone.”

Although there is years of planning and organisation that goes into each programme, Hodby says due to the unique nature of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and its varied landscape within the 500 acre estate, they have the ability to be fairly reactive if the circumstances arose.

The 2026 season sees a first for the YSP with a the first ever group show held in the 20-year history of the Underground Gallery and is a landmark exhibition in collaboration with Tia Collection. (Hold to this Earth: Works by Contemporary Indigenous North American Artists from Tia Collection 13 June 2026 – 18 April 2027)

“It presents contemporary Indigenous North American art on an unprecedented scale in the UK,” says Hodby.

It brings together over 60 works by more than 30 artists, whose practices are rooted in deep relationships to land, cultural memory and community.

"This exhibition offers a rare encounter with contemporary Indigenous North American art and lived experience that is unprecedented in Europe. There is some really challenging work in there, but also the stories that are told through these works are relevant to everyone – they speak of climate change, of colonial pasts and presents, the politics of ownership and power.”

Spanning numerous regions and genres, it features a richly diverse range of sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, film and painting.

“This exhibition assembles some of the most visionary contemporary artists working now. Their perspectives offer urgent, moving and impactful insights into how we relate to land and to one another,” says Hodby.

“It is an honour for YSP to host this historic gathering of contemporary North American Indigenous art, and to share these important voices with audiences across the UK.”

Preceding this Rise (4 March 2026, The Weston Gallery and Outdoors supported by October Gallery) is an ambitious first solo museum exhibition by LR Vandy, created for The Weston Gallery at YSP.

Lisa Vandy’s material-led practice is distinguished by her use of rope and found materials to explore power dynamics, cultural traditions, and histories of international trade.

“We have had a long relationship with her over the years but we felt now the time was right to bring her work to the Weston Gallery. Lisa’s studio is an historic dockyard in Kent which his next to a traditional ropery which is still in operation today.

"Lisa has become fascinated with rope that has gone all over the world that not only has metaphorical meaning it is also a really beutiful material and she’s making an installation for us,

Vandy will transform The Weston Gallery into an immersive environment dominated by a soaring rope maypole and sculptural forms.

“It is an honour to show my work at YSP. This opportunity to create a site-specific installation is a first for me, offering space to expand the scope of my work and ideas to mount a complex, sensory experience rooted in materiality,” says Vandy.

Leeds-based artist Andi Walker presents Wrapped in Cold Hard Comfort, a new outdoor sculpture to be revealed the spring 2026. “They are really interested in exploring what is permanent and what’s ephemeral,” says Hodby.

“As the work weathers and elements of it gradually disintegrate, it reflects on this relationship between permanence and impermanence in outdoor sculpture. That for us is exciting and very challenging. Of course we want to hold a safe space for art works but if the intention of that artwork is to weather and deteriorate we also need to hold that space for our visitors to understand that’s what should be happening.”

The recipient of the YSP Yorkshire Graduate Award 2025–26, Jim Ever, will spend two weeks in residence at YSP (January 12 – 25) supported by the Curatorial and Technical teams. During his period of research, Ever will draw inspiration from the Park’s landscape and historic trees, focussing on reimagining our relationship with nature through image-making, sound and projection. This will lead into the development of new work for an audio-visual display on the lakeside Boathouse in summer. Ever is a recent Fine Art graduate from Sheffield Hallam University, whose multi-disciplinary practice spans sound, collage, assemblage, video, installation, and sculpture. Often bringing together unexpected materials, his work explores the relationship between analogue and digital technologies, finding new conversations between traditional and experimental methods.

ROTATOR is Jakob Rowlinson’s first institutional project, presented as an installation in the YSP Centre and a solo exhibition, REVIVER at The Art House in Wakefield. Spanning across the two venues, this new body of work weaves together complex material histories, explores the ecology of YSP’s landscape, and continues the artist’s interest in queering the archive. Rowlinson merges the sacred and profane, drawing on religious and folkloric imagery such as angels, demons and green men, and combining them with contemporary queer fashion and fetish references.

Suspended above the YSP Centre concourse, ROTATOR features three large-scale leather sculptures that act as guardians of the threshold between indoors and outdoors. Coloured using handmade oak-gall dyes foraged from YSP’s trees, they reference Yorkshire’s historic importance in the leather tanning industry. At the heart of each sculpture is a two-faced head, like modern Janus figures. Created from reclaimed leather garments that are relics of bodily history, the material is revived in both form and meaning.

Other exhibitions include Thabo Mkwananzi: UMFECE Summer 2026, Louise Lockhart: Cake Crumbs and Lemonade 7 March – 28 June 2026, YSP Centre, Annie Montgomerie: Missies and Nippers 11 July – 1 November 2026, YSP Centre and Angela Harding: A Chronicle of Birds and Beasts 14 November – 28 February 2027, YSP Centre

ysp.org.uk