Beyond the Visual: A Multisensory Sculpture Exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute
The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds has opened Beyond the Visual, a landmark exhibition that rethinks what sculpture is and who it is for. Running from 28 November 2025 to 19 April 2026 in the Institute’s Sculpture Galleries and Study Gallery, the show is free to visit and positions blind and partially blind practitioners at the core of the project—not as an add-on, but as the driving force behind its artistic and curatorial vision.
Described as the UK’s first major sculpture exhibition where blind and partially blind artists are central to the curatorial team and make up the majority of participants, Beyond the Visual argues that blindness is no barrier to ambitious, conceptually rich and internationally relevant sculpture. Sixteen artists from different countries present works that weave together touch, sound, smell and movement. Historical sculptures by Henry Moore and Barry Flanagan foreground the importance of tactility in their practices, while new commissions by David Johnson, Sam Metz, Serafina Min, Aaron McPeake and Ken Wilder use materials, scent and sonic elements to open up a range of sensory experiences.
The exhibition extends throughout the building. In the Study Gallery, a new sound and video installation by Fayen d’Evie, created with Georgina Kleege, Hillary Goidell and Bryan Phillips, unfolds as a dense, layered environment of voices and images. In the basement Seminar Room, a rolling programme of audio-described films continues the exploration of how artworks can be encountered without relying primarily on vision. Instead of treating access features as secondary, the show builds them into its very structure.
A clear message runs through the exhibition design: “please touch”. Every object on display can be handled by visitors. Dark grey carpeted zones on the floor indicate where sculptures are within arm’s reach, inviting people to step in and explore surfaces, temperatures and forms directly. Yellow circles on the floor mark sound points linked to an audio guide, which offers multiple tracks for each work, including descriptive narration and the artists speaking about their practice. These can be accessed via QR codes on the walls or through handheld audio players available outside the galleries. Gallery assistants in bright yellow jumpers move through the space, helping visitors locate works, operate audio devices and share feedback, which is actively collected as part of the project.
Beyond the Visual is the culmination of a three-year research collaboration between the Henry Moore Institute, University of the Arts London and Shape Arts, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Curated by Dr Clare O’Dowd with Professor Ken Wilder and Dr Aaron McPeake, the exhibition proposes a shift in how museums think about audiences, accessibility and expertise. Rather than imagining a special category of “art for the blind”, it suggests that all sculpture is multisensory at its core—and that embracing this fact can change the way everyone, sighted or not, experiences art.