The Secret Sculpture Garden

When the Hunterian Art Gallery building, designed by architect William Whitfield, opened in 1981, an open-air sculpture courtyard was created as a liminal space connecting the gallery, the University of Glasgow Campus, and the West End community. The Hunterian acquired a selection of late twentieth-century sculptures for outdoor display, including works by renowned artists Anthony Caro, Eduardo Paolozzi and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It has come to the attention of the Hunterian staff that this space should be utilised as a key feature of the gallery. Annually, selected students from the postgraduate Curatorial Practice course (offered jointly by Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow) undertake various collaborative work placements. The students work closely with artists, curators and a range of organisations. This year's Hunterian curatorial placement undertaken by ourselves - Holly MacDonald, Natasha Parker-Edwards and Marina Ziavra - involved the task of reanimating the sculpture courtyard as a significant part of the institution. To revive the Sculpture Courtyard, and to arouse the interest of the public, we are hosting an evening event. The Secret Sculpture Garden celebrates the dialogue between the sculptures, the architecture and the contemporary movement of the Hunterian Gallery. This zine shares our research of the courtyard and its sculptures through the documentation of text, and archival imagery (with the permission of University of Glasgow Archives and Special Collections, PHU39). As an initial response to the outdoor site, we noticed that firstly, on an aesthetic level, the space needed some care. We initiated a ‘clean-up’ day with the Hunterian staff, to re-engage them with this area of the gallery and bring back to life this forgotten and unique space. In addition, through the commission of sound responses by composer Henry Metherell and sound artist Gavriel Rubin, we enrich the experience of the space, breathing life back into the sculptures. Each piece of sound links with a particular sculpture. The sound produced gives each sculpture a character and a voice, facilitating re-engagement with the sculptures and space through juxtaposition, history, reflection and tranquility. As an ongoing project, the audio artwork heard at the event will be accessible from the 3rd May onwards on the Bloomberg Connects App - a new feature of The Hunterian which allows for a wider virtual audience. Here, we encourage attendees of the event to return to the space to interact with the audio work through headphones, enjoying the reinvigorated Sculpture Courtyard. We hope the night of the event excites the audience, reanimates the angular sculptures with the colourful uplights, and raises awareness of the potential of the space for future projects. For one evening only, we are delighted to be hosting internationally renowned performance artist and composer Genevieve Murphy, who will perform The One I Feed, to re-establish the courtyard as a place used to stage interdisciplinary artwork through sound, spoken word and storytelling.