Image: View of Penistone Hill Country Park where four new contemporary works have been installed. Photo credit Jon Super/PA Media Assignments
New public artworks by international artists transform Penistone Hill Country Park into open-air gallery for Bradford 2025 City of Culture programme.
Penistone Hill Country Park in Bradford will become home to four new contemporary art installations as part of the Wild Uplands project, running from 24 May to 12 October 2025 as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
The installations, created by national and international artists, will transform the moorland site above Haworth into an open-air gallery. The location, which provided inspiration for the Brontë sisters’ novels, will host works that respond to the North Pennines landscape and the area’s industrial quarrying heritage.
Artist Meherunnisa Asad, working with Peshawar-based Studio Lél, will create an installation featuring intricate butterflies carved from pink marble sourced from Pakistan. The work is inspired by “Bradford’s stories of migration and movement and the resilience of its natural landscape”, said UK City of Culture.
Brazilian-born, London-based artist Vanessa da Silva will produce colourful, five-metre-high interactive sculptures inspired by natural forms and plants found in the park. The sculptures are designed to provide gathering spaces for visitors to rest and connect with the landscape.
Berlin-based Monira al Qadiri will create sculptures reflecting on the relationship between fact and fiction, inspired by the 1917 Cottingley Fairies incident, in which two Yorkshire girls created a series of photos of ‘fairies’ from paper cut-outs.
UK artist Steve Messam will construct a ten-metre-high tower exploring Bradford’s natural building materials. The tower, inspired by stone from the country park’s quarry and clad in fleece from local sheep breeds, reflects on wool’s role in the district’s industrial heritage.
The project includes an immersive sound walk called ‘Earth & Sky’, developed in partnership with Opera North. Using geolocation technology through a phone app, the sound work changes as visitors move through the park.
Three international composers – Italian Caterina Barbieri, Kenyan Nyokabi Kariũki and Welsh Gwen Siôn – have created the new work, incorporating field recordings from the local area, poetry by Nabeelah Hafeez, and pieces by Bradford-born composer Frederick Delius, performed by the Orchestra of Opera North.
Wild Uplands is curated by Shanaz Gulzar, creative director of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
Gulzar said the project “is where art, nature and Bradford’s heritage converge”.
“By inviting national and international artists to engage with this iconic site, both visually and aurally, through our collaboration with Opera North and the astounding composers who have produced new music for Earth & Sky, we are reimagining how art can deepen our connection to our uplands.”
Wild Uplands is supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Yorkshire Water, Natural England, British Council, The Linbury Trust and the Henry Moore Foundation.
Eilish McGuinness, chief executive at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, added: “Using the rich natural, literary and industrial legacies of Bradford to invoke these fascinating artistic responses within the rugged yet beautiful moors of Penistone Hill is a wonderful way to open up heritage for all those who live, work and visit Bradford, and it is sure to be an experience that will remain with those visitors for years to come.”
