WAKEFIELD (Yorkshire, United Kingdom): Hold to This Earth, an exhibition of works by contemporary Indigenous North American artists opens at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield on Saturday.
The exhibition will remain open for over ten months, from June 13, 2026, to April 18, 2027. It is the largest exhibition of contemporary Native North American art to be shown in the United Kingdom, and is being held as the United States (US) gears up to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
A total of 67 works by 38 artists representing 35 different Tribal Nations are featured in the exhibition. It offers a counter-view of the colonialist history of the US. The works explore a continent whose beliefs and traditions date back not centuries but millennia, and whose more recent past is marked by its original people’s exploitation, their experiences too often buried or ignored. Hold to This Earth features sculpture, film, photography, painting, ceramics and fiber art highlighting the broad spectrum of work being produced by Indigenous North American artists today. The works reflect on land, environmental responsibility, cultural continuity, and the ongoing impact of colonial histories on Indigenous communities.
The show is installed across the park’s open grounds, indoor gallery spaces, and even the underground gallery, according to a press release from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It uses the natural environment as an integral part of the viewing experience. Works are positioned in fields, woodland areas, and built spaces, encouraging visitors to engage with the landscape as part of the meaning of the artwork rather than as a neutral backdrop. The approach emphasizes dialogue between place and artistic practice, with a focus on how land is understood, cared for, and contested. The common thread in the artworks is the special awareness of the artists with the relationship that human beings have with the natural world
Hold This Earth forms part of Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s wider program of international contemporary art, which frequently includes large-scale outdoor installations and site-responsive works. The park, located in West Yorkshire, has established a reputation for exhibiting sculpture in natural settings, allowing artists to respond directly to changing weather, terrain, and seasonal conditions.
The exhibition also reflects broader developments in museum and gallery programming in the United Kingdom, where institutions have increasingly sought to present Indigenous perspectives within global contemporary art contexts. In this case, the focus is on how Indigenous American artists articulate relationships to territory, memory, and ecological stewardship through material practice.
The title of the exhibition is taken from Defend Sacred Mountains, a series of text-based mono-prints by the artist and activist Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds.
The artists featured in the exhibition are D. C. Allen, Neal Ambrose-Smith, Teresa Baker, Raven Chacon, Melissa Cody, Yatika Starr Fields, Nicholas Galanin, Jeffrey Gibson, Raven Halfmoon, Bob Haozous, Sheldon Harvey, Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, Allan Houser, Zig Jackson, Sayo’:kla Kindness-Williams, Brad Kahlhamer, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Matthew Kirk, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Dakota Mace, George Morrison, Michael Namingha, Virgil Ortiz, Mikayla Patton, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Wendy Red Star, Eric-Paul Riege, Cara Romero, Diego Romero, Rose B. Simpson, Roxanne Swentzell, Tyrrell Tapaha, Maggie Thompson, Zoë Urness, Kay WalkingStick, Marie Watt, Dyani White Hawk and Emmi Whitehorse.
The exhibition features works selected from the Tia Collection of Santa Fe. The Tia Collection is a huge privately owned global art collection based in Sata Fe in the US state of New Mexico. It has over 5,000 artworks.
Tickets to the Hold to This Earth show can be booked here.
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