All Kinds of Hands: an exhibition of co-produced sculpture

All Kinds of Hands imagines sculpture as something formed by different people. Offering new models for making which venture beyond individual vision, works by five artists from across the UK present sculpture as a means of engaging communities, welcoming alternative perspectives, and positioning art practice as a collaborative field. Pieces on display include object-based artworks, sculptural environments and site specific projects exhibited via documentation. The exhibition morphs the gallery from a place of silent contemplation into a space for making, talking, exploring and playing.

Five different approaches to involving people in the making process are embodied in each practice. Ellie Barrett uses the playgroup setting to facilitate intergenerational collaboration through exploring domestic craft materials. Nisha Duggal invites conversation through making and walking to encourage consideration of the relationship between belonging and landscape. Beata Podstawa works closely with her son in order to access her own imaginative view of the world. Assunta Ruocco offers a co-created space for making, activated by a workshop to share collaborative creative methods developed with her daughter Lou. Sarah Ryder works with children to create a reconfigurable setting for explorative play, presenting sculpture as fluctuating and changeable. All of these approaches are directly concerned with increasing public access to art making, involving different voices in shaping works of sculpture, and considering shared experiences - such as playing, drawing, walking and talking - as existing ways of producing.