Yorkshire Sculpture International is delighted to launch a new artist’s publication, Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup, made by the fifteen sculptors of the YSI Sculpture Network 2025.
Designed by Sheffield-based designer Ashleigh Armitage, with photographs by James Clarkson and texts by artist Olivia Bax and Jane Bhoyroo, Principal Keeper, Leeds Art Gallery, this unbound publication with a hand screen-printed cover is supported by Yorkshire Visual Arts Network (YVAN) and the Newspaper Club.
The book is the legacy of an exhibition of the same name, co-curated by the network artists and staged in the Henry Moore Institute Research Library in Leeds in December 2025. For one day, sculptural gestures, objects and responses were placed among the shelves and reading tables of one of the most significant sculpture libraries in the world.
The exhibition took its starting point from Phyllida Barlow’s Objects for a Library (1995), the sculptural intervention Barlow made when the library first opened, placing objects alongside the books. Thirty years on, the 2025 network returned to the same space, not to recreate Barlow’s gesture, but to continue a conversation about sculpture, learning and what it means to inhabit a space of knowledge as an artist today.
The title comes from the three smallest bones in the human body, the hammer, anvil and stirrup of the inner ear, which the group took as a way of describing their four months together: making and listening, impact and resistance, movement and connection.
Artists
The fifteen artists, all based across Yorkshire, are Anne-Marie Atkinson, Luke Beech, Grace Clifford, Henry Cottam, Joseph Goddard, Aliyah Hussain, Lucie Kordacova, Alana Lake, Simon Le Ruez, Molly Newham, Simon Raines, Rhubarbs, Ailish Treanor, Chanelle Windas and Dawn Woolley.
They were selected for YSI Sculpture Network by open call from applicants across the region’s cities, towns, countryside and coast, and spent June to October 2025 together on an intensive hybrid programme of workshops, talks, studio visits, crits and mentoring, building connections with curators, galleries and collections across Yorkshire and beyond.
The publication
Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup is produced in an edition of 100 copies, unbound, with a hand screen-printed cover, and is supported by Yorkshire Visual Arts Network (YVAN) and the Newspaper Club.
Laurence Sillars, Head of Henry Moore Institute and YSI Founding Partner:
“Henry Moore Institute’s Sculpture Research Library is a place where the histories of sculpture can be explored, questioned and reimagined. Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup is a wonderful example of what can happen when artists are invited to engage creatively with that space.
It is particularly exciting to see how Phyllida Barlow’s Objects for a Library, created when the library first opened thirty years ago, has continued to inspire new generations of artists. The fifteen artists of the YSI Sculpture Network have responded not by recreating that intervention, but by continuing a conversation about sculpture, learning and what it means to inhabit a space of knowledge as an artist today.
Through Yorkshire Sculpture International, we are proud to support sculptors across Yorkshire, creating opportunities for artists to develop their practice, build connections and share their work with new audiences. This publication is a lasting record of that exchange and of the ideas and relationships that have developed through the network.”
Ella Cronk, Programme and Partnership Manager, Yorkshire Sculpture International:
“This publication captures a particular point in Yorkshire’s sculptural history while looking firmly towards what comes next. It arrives at an exciting time for our partnership, as we establish Sculpture International as a triennial and continue to put artists at its centre. There is a real sense of momentum building across the region: something we hope will be felt, remembered and perhaps rediscovered by another generation thirty years from now. This is the kind of activity we want to see much more of across Yorkshire, and there is a great deal more to come.”
Alana Lake, Sculpture Network 2025 artist:
“Participating in the YSI Sculpture Network 2025 has been a joyous and enriching experience. Through generous mentoring and shared conversation, we developed Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup together as both an exhibition and a publication, bringing our different practices and perspectives into one place. I really valued the openness and mutual support within the group, and the friendships and collaborations that have continued beyond the programme.”
About YSI Sculpture Network
Yorkshire has a world-renowned sculptural legacy rooted in the work of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, who both grew up in the region. The YSI partnership is committed to the future of that legacy, and central to it is the community of contemporary sculptors who have chosen to base their practice here.
YSI Sculpture Network is the partnership’s joint professional development programme for those artists. Since it launched in 2020 it has supported nearly sixty artists working across expanded and interdisciplinary approaches to sculpture. Sculpture Network 2025 marked its relaunch after a three-year break, with 15 participants chosen by a selection panel drawn from the partner institutions and independent artists and curators.
The programme introduces artists to regional and national connections, demystifies how to engage with career opportunities, and fosters relationships with curators in public, commercial and artist-led galleries and spaces. Just as importantly, it builds relationships between the artists themselves.
Further news about Yorkshire Sculpture International’s plans for 2027 will be announced later this year.
Images are from YSI 2019.
Main image: John Jamieson sculpture in school.
