Of Time and Place is a free public exhibition celebrating Huddersfield and its surrounding area: its culture, language, landscape, architecture and history.
Of Time and Place opens at Huddersfield Art Gallery on 10 February 2023. Conceived as a wander through the cultural landscape of Huddersfield, it takes in architectural landmarks, celebrations of vocabulary, past memorials of loved ones, snapshots of daily life and questions of permanence over the temporary. It encourages new ways of seeing and of experiencing your surroundings. It asks you to look up and look out, to feel and to touch.
Curated by architectural practice Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the exhibition is part of their wider engagement with the community alongside Kirklees Council’s ambitious Cultural Heart plans, which will revitalise the centre through the repurposing of historic buildings, and the creation of new arts culture and leisure venues.
In this exhibition of hands-on activities, archive material, community-led content and specially commissioned pieces, we ask visitors to get involved, to make, create, watch and learn, sit and think, and leave your mark.
Kirklees Council Leader, Councillor Shabir Pandor, said:
“It is important that, as part of major regeneration projects, we include the community as much as possible. This exhibition offers a unique opportunity to appreciate the history of Huddersfield whilst looking to the future.
“I encourage our communities to visit the exhibition and enjoy all that it has to offer.”
Of Time and Place has been developed in close collaboration with community groups and the University of Huddersfield, commissioning local residents, supporting and mentoring students and engaging with local businesses. Whilst the architecture of the Cultural Heart of Kirklees was the starting point, the resulting exhibition looks to engage with as wide an audience as possible, offering different views and experiences, and celebrating local life and language with a piece developed in collaboration with local resident and Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage.