Forget intimidating white spaces, forbidding barriers and draconian gallery rules – a great place for kids to experience art is outdoors (even if it might start raining)
S
o, you want to introduce small children to art. Why not ease yourselves in? No white walls. No string barriers. No alarms. No beady-eyed gallery attendants. Just a whole lot of green space in which to charge about and come across awe-inspiring art while you’re at it. There are several outdoor sculpture parks offering free-range art exploration in the UK, but one above all beckons. That’s right, it’s time for this toddler’s first trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP).
Admittedly, my timing is a smidge off. When we head there, it’s mid-February, and don’t we know it. As we pull into the car park, the sky is a grisly blanket of greyish white. The drizzle starts soon after we open our doors, and doesn’t stop. As I’m pushing the buggy uphill, struggling to get a grip as my boots slip in the mud, I briefly wonder whether I should have saved this series for summer. But then I look around me at the tiny people in wellies and waders running wild around the Barbara Hepworths, and I reconsider.
Spread across the 18th-century Bretton Hall estate in West Yorkshire, YSP was the first of its kind in the UK. Founding director Peter Murray was a lecturer at Bretton Hall College when he first suggested installing sculpture in the grounds and inviting the public to explore it; since then, it’s grown into the largest sculpture park in Europe. Dotted across 202 hectares (500 acres) of fields, hills, woodland, formal gardens and two lakes are modern and contemporary artworks by beloved locals Hepworth and Henry Moore, and international stars such as Bharti Kher and Sol LeWitt. Come rain or shine, it welcomes traditional gallerygoers as well as dog walkers and folk who simply want to soak up the green. It also caters brilliantly to small children.
