Huddersfield University signs arts deal with Yorkshire Sculpture Park

THE sculptors of the future could be from Huddersfield.

The University of Huddersfield and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park have signed an exciting new partnership deal.

It will mean students will have access to the four indoor galleries and external sculptures set in more than 500 acres of 18th-century parkland at West Bretton, in which the Sculpture Park has become an international centre for modern and contemporary art.

It is visited by thousands of visitors each year.

The University’s School of Art, Design and Architecture has become one of the foremost design colleges in the country, renowned for the creativity and quality of its teaching.

Its students are regular winners and finalists in national competitions and its graduates can be found across the creative industry.

Both organisations have previously worked together on an informal basis, but now plan to develop the new deal to benefit the arts.

Emma Hunt, the University’s Dean of Art, Design and Architecture, has been a driving force behind the collaboration.

She said: “This is an excellent opportunity for both organisations and we hope that this formal arrangement will create a springboard for even more opportunities for the students.

“These closer links with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park will enable our students to engage in emerging academic themes such as Art in the Landscape as well as the use of public sculpture to enhance spaces and communities, environmental concerns and importantly the use of art, design and architecture as a tool for education, appreciation and economic developments.”

Yorkshire Sculpture Park chief executive, Peter Murray, is also delighted by the partnership.

He said: “Both organisations value the part that the Arts play in social, cultural and economic well-being and see the relationship as having and adding value to regional, national and international partners.

“Research and scholarly activity has a common core in both organisations and it is this that will focus the work of the partnership and shares in the mission statements of both organisations.”