Yorkshire Sculpture Park presents 'Hold to This Earth', an exhibition featuring works by 38 Indigenous American artists across its galleries. The show includes Navajo weavings by Tyrrell Tapaha and Melissa Cody, beadwork by Jeffrey Gibson, geometric sculptures by Dyani White Hawk, and ceramic figures by Rose B Simpson and her mother Roxanne Swentzell. The exhibition explores themes of land, memory, oppression, and freedom, blending traditional Indigenous aesthetics with contemporary practices such as pixelated video game patterns and pure abstraction. Works by Edgar Heap of Birds, Yatika Starr Fields, Sayokla Kindness Williams, and Virgil Ortiz address protest, stolen land, and colonial resistance.
The exhibition matters because it brings Indigenous American perspectives to a UK institution at a time when such shows have become a notable trend in British museums. It highlights how Indigenous artists use ancestral techniques to address ongoing issues of colonialism, occupation, and cultural survival, framing art as a form of aesthetic resistance. The show also implicitly critiques contemporary political contexts, including Trump-era immigration policies, by connecting historical oppression to present-day struggles over land and identity.