'I'm head of programmes at Yorkshire Sculpture Park - my job is like an air traffic controller'
Last autumn Yorkshire Sculpture Park appointed Dr Alexandra Hodby as the new Head of Programmes, following her successful interim tenure in the role.
It’s a big job, programming across the several indoor exhibition spaces at the YSP and, of course, the extensive outdoor grounds. But Hodby is absolutely up to the challenge.
When we meet over coffee at the Park, she is just five months into her role and she has been very busy but is full of energy and excitement and YSP clearly has a special place in her heart.
Her relationship with the organization goes back a long way, more than 20 years. It is where she began her curatorial career in the early 2000s during which time the Visitor Centre and the Underground Gallery were opened.
“I loved working here then, so to come back after having worked in other places has been amazing because this place for me was always so formative and always a touchpoint in my thinking as a curator,” she says.
“I would come back here regularly to see exhibitions and talk to the team. So, to return as Head of Programmes feels like such a privilege. It is an organization that continually shapes the dialogue between sculpture, people and place.”
In the intervening years Hodby worked at various leading cultural institutions, most recently as senior curator of programme at Chatsworth where she oversaw exhibitions across the house and gardens and led on collection research, and prior to that as a research curator at Museums Sheffield, alongside studying for a PhD with Tate Modern and Goldsmiths University examining public programmes and the role of learning and democracy in museums.
“My research really centred on education and engagement and the kind of things that art can unlock that nothing else can,” she says.
“Bringing that research into this kind of environment is really exciting for me. There are things you can do at YSP that you can’t do anywhere else in terms of creative and cultural thinking and you work with a range of brilliant teams. Here we have this unique context of art, people and nature.
"It makes for a really interesting way of making public art and bringing as many people to it as possible.”
Over the years the YSP has built strong relationships with its visitors and local communities and Hodby is committed to continuing to ensure that the visitor experience appeals to a wide and diverse audience. Her approach is inclusive, and that is reflected in her ambitions for the programme and the exhibition spaces, broadening the organization’s reach further.
“We are thinking about how we bring into the programme more women artists and other marginalized communities. This year in the Underground Gallery we will be working with the Tia Collection which celebrates contemporary indigenous American art.”
The exhibition, Hold to This Earth, which opens in June and explores land, identity and materiality, represents a milestone for the YSP in that it is the first ever group show held in the Underground Gallery and presents contemporary Indigenous North American art on a scale not seen in the UK before.
The collection features a richly diverse range of sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, film and painting with the artists looking at resilience and the ongoing connections between body and place.
“To bring those artists who have not been very well represented in Europe before was an incredible opportunity,” says Hodby.
“It is a chance to showcase that international work but also to demonstrate all the ways in which we literally have common ground. Another important part of indigenous Native American life is storytelling and we are very keen on that here too.
"The storytelling in those works is incredibly powerful and that is going to give us opportunities throughout the run of the exhibition for our visitors to think about their own stories and connections to the land.”
Visitor engagement is an important part of the role for Hodby. It underlies everything she has done in her career and focused on in her research to date.
As she explains, she understands personally the transformative power of engaging with art.
“I grew up in Stoke on Trent and I was the first person in my family to go to university; what changed my life was going to museums and galleries,” she says. “And that is what drives me because it transformed everything.
"For as long as I can, I would like to be able to make that happen for other people. Here we can offer people such a huge range of generations of artists and a variety of materials and ways of thinking about the world.”
Building on and nurturing relationships with artists is another key aspect of Hodby’s role.
“That is so important because so many of the artworks have either been made with this place in mind or we have worked with the artist to find somewhere in the landscape where a particular artwork can be displayed.
"Working on this scale, it has to be collaborative so working with artists here is about consolidating a relationship with them and with this place. And the conversation quite often continues after the exhibition has finished.”
Works frequently come back to the YSP, are donated by artists or are on long-term loan.
“We are also supporting several artists to make new work here and that is what we really want to do. Facilitating that and being able to share it with visitors is one of my favourite things to do.”
Looking forward to 2027 – which is a landmark year for the YSP, marking its 50th anniversary – Hodby is excited about the possibilities and opportunities. There are plenty of plans already in the pipeline.
“The analogy I often use is that my job is a bit like being an air traffic controller – you have all these ideas circling like aeroplanes and then you choose which ones you land.
"Here we are programming three galleries and 500 acres of outdoor space so you also have to think about what those projects lend to each other.”
Welcoming around 400,000 visitors a year, over the nearly half a century the YSP has inspired three generations of people with its unique offer – a place where people can connect with nature and art. The YSP’s learning programme attracts in the region of 40,000 learners annually giving people the chance to fulfill their own creative potential.
“This is a place of real possibility where the outlook is always positive and optimistic,” says Hodby.
“I feel that someone who works here and I know from talking to people who visit here and our communities that they feel it too.
"What’s really important for me now is not only thinking about the legacy of the 50 years that have gone but also thinking about the next 50 years – what is the future going to look like and what’s crucial for us to be having conversations about now and for the next decades. Every year this place becomes more relevant – we are working with climate change and community cohesion and the non-digital experience.”
Current exhibitions at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park include William Kentridge: The Pull of Gravity; Louise Lockhart: Cakes, Crumbs and Lemonade; L R Vandy: Rise, and Nicola Turner: Time’s Scythe.
For more details and to book a ticket visit ysp.org.uk