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Henry Moore Studios & Gardens in Hertfordshire is currently closed for winter, reopening in April 2025.

Henry Moore Institute in Leeds will be closed over Christmas from 23 to 26 December and 30 December to 1 January (library and archive closed from 23 December to 1 January).

Discover & Research

Beyond the Visual: Blindness and Expanded Sculpture

Autumn 2024 – Spring 2025

Engaging with contemporary sculpture using senses other than sight.

A splayed hand touching a bronze plate with lines of single black letters recessed into it. The letters are from a Snellen eye test chart and reduce in size from top to bottom.

About this season

Beyond the Visual: Blindness and Expanded Sculpture is a ground-breaking collaborative research project spearheaded by Dr Ken Wilder (University of the Arts London Professor of Aesthetics), Dr Aaron McPeake (artist and Associate Lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts) and Dr Clare O’Dowd (Research Curator at the Henry Moore Institute), together with Shape Arts, the UK’s leading disability-led arts organisation. The project is the recipient of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) inaugural Exhibition Fund, a major grant supporting innovative, collaborative exhibition approaches. The three-year project will culminate in a free exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute, in November 2025.

As part of the project, the Beyond the Visual Research Season will explore engagements with contemporary sculpture using senses other than sight, challenging the dominance of sight in the making and appreciation of art and investigating wider questions around the nature of artworks and the varied ways in which they can be experienced. The Research Season aims to rethink not only the under-representation of blind and partially blind arts practitioners but also the relationship between artworks and audiences, exploring what is gained from creative practices that emphasise a broader approach to sensory experience.

UK Research and Innovation: Arts and Humanities Research Council logo
Chelsea College of Arts, UAL logo
Shape Arts

Upcoming events in this season

Blindness and Expanded Sculpture
A ring of metal, roughly 30cm in diameter, hanging on a loop of string. A hand is steadying the ring, while a second hand is poised to strike it with a small, square hammer.
Part of Beyond the Visual
Part of Beyond the Visual

Conference

Blindness and Expanded Sculpture

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Leeds Art Gallery, UK
Collaborative Audio Description
Part of Beyond the Visual
Part of Beyond the Visual

Workshop

Collaborative Audio Description

10:00–15:30

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Yorkshire Sculpture Park