Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Last week I visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park as part of my Curating Art module at the University of Manchester. The majority of the sculptures are outside and luckily we had a nice day (for the majority of it anyway!) The whole park is dotted with sculptures and with such vast grounds it is easy to spend a whole day wandering the park and soaking in the sights.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park has a lovely, modern visitors center with a quaint little sop full of products that were designed especially for sale in the park. The cafe is beautiful, with a huge glass wall that overlooks the park and a large and varied menu that has something for everyone (I helped myself to the delicious homemade chips served in a cute little bucket). 

The sculptures that are placed outside have a certain affinity with the surrounding landscape. They seem as if they were always meant to live in the park and be at one with nature. It is also particularly novel for the avid museum-goer that you can also touch many of the sculptures on display outside, adding another dimension of engagement between the visitor and artwork.

The park is so appealing because of its exploratory value. The main sights are marked out on the park map but on the way there are plenty of other sculptures and statues to discover around every corner and behind every tree. A variety of different sights and scenes keeps the visitor entertained, one minute you are in a rose filled green house and the next you are on a bridge overlooking a trickling stream. The delightful variety of sculptures and the exploratory nature of the park means that Yorkshire Sculpture Park offers something for everyone and would be a delightful day out if you are 7 or 70. Even though I did not have brilliant weather on the day that I visited, I enjoyed the natural atmosphere of the park immensely, so I can only imagine how beautiful the park would be in the height of summer! 

The Sensory War, Manchester Art Gallery

I have been meaning to visit The Sensory War exhibit at the Manchester Art Gallery for a number of weeks now as I had heard a large number of good reviews an recommendations. Normally I don't venture the busy town center on the weekend but learning that it was the exhibition's last weekend was the push that I needed to get me down to the Manchester Art Gallery on a Saturday afternoon.

I am going to join the ranks and shower the exhibition with praise. It was beautiful and haunting at the same time, covering a large number of genres, periods and conflicts. Each piece was accompanied by detailed text that conveyed the background information of each artwork and how the artist was connected to that particular war. I was particularly touched by images created by victims from Hiroshima and Nagasaki; none of the artists were professionals by any means but the images that they created were touching and extremely telling of the horrors of war. 

The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester - Grand Re-opening!

On Saturday I visited the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester for the first day of its grand reopening weekend after being out of action for a £15 million refurbishment. As a Museum studies student and a member of the University of Manchester, it was a very important and exciting event in this year's calendar and has been highly anticipated, especially by the University's AGMS students (Art Gallery & Museum Studies). Having only lived in Manchester since September, I didn't have the fortune to see the gallery before its transformation so I can not successfully give a comparison between the old building and the new. However, what I did find was a beautiful, contemporary space that still held the charm of the original 19th century building while treating the visitor to a modern, open plan gallery. 

Upon entering on Saturday morning, the gallery was already busy and bustling and the staff were obviously excited and eager to help all of the visitors that came through the doors. The new look galleries are spacious, modern and beautiful and highlight The Whitworth's stunning collections. 

I was particularly interested in Cornelia Parker's work, which is the gallery's first major temporary exhibition to mark the reopening. I am the first to admit that I have never been a fan of modern art; I can not often see the beauty in it, (something which bemuses me and annoys my modern-art-loving friends who have to put up with my disappointed sighs) however I found Parker's work to be both fascinating and beautiful. There is a curiosity in her work and often a hidden beauty in the mediums that she uses that I found particularly interesting. I am looking forward to visiting again in order to properly soak in all of her work, as I found the mass of visitors to the gallery that day made it extremely difficult to focus on any one art work for too long. 

With wonderful temporary exhibits alongside beautiful permanent displays, it is no wonder that The Whitworth gained thousands more visitors on its opening weekend than was estimated. I unfortunately couldn't take the crowds after nearly two hours of battling our way around the various rooms and reluctantly retreated to the gardens. However, my next trip is already planned (with part of that plan being to visit the delicious-looking cafe) and I can't wait to soak up all that The Whitworth has to offer!

MOSI - Museum of Science and Industry

In my time living in Manchester I had not yet visited MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry) and as a good Museum Studies student I felt the need to visit while mulling over some dissertation topics. Now, I am not particularly charmed by Science Museums and industrial history does not particularly interest me so maybe this should have been a foreshadowing of my visit....However, after slightly falling in love with the National Railway Museum in York I felt that perhaps I had been converted and anyway, never knock something until you've tried it. 

Unfortunately, MOSI didn't capture me the way that the National Railway Museum did. Maybe it is because it isn't as grand or maybe it is because (i'm sorry!) I don't find Manchester's cotton industry that interesting. The child inside me loved the moving displays in Power Hall and the interactive exhibits upstairs in the Great Western Warehouse and from the amount of families with small children that I saw, it looked fun for family members of all ages. There were some lovely displays that I found interesting (Air and Space Gallery in particular) and I am sure that anyone with an interest in the historical industries of the north would find MOSI a fascinating place, but I'm afraid it just wasn't for me.