ABOUT THRESHOLD
New exhibitions coming soon, follow @thresholdsculpture on Instagram for announcements...
Threshold is an artist-led space for exhibitions of sculpture in Leeds, located in the front garden of a traditional back-to-back house in Burley. Our exhibitions are outside and free to view as you walk through the neighbourhood.
Threshold was founded by artist and curator Julia McKinlay in 2021 as a direct response to the practical challenges she experienced as an artist trying to find a suitable and reliable venue to situate work in the region. Without space, it is impossible to source appropriate funding for ambitious works of sculpture. The lack of available exhibition spaces for artist-led projects remains a problem we face in Leeds and Yorkshire more widely.
The 2021 programme included exhibitions by Alice Chandler, Victoria Lucas, Julia McKinlay and Jacob Farrell and Emii Alrai, and was generously funded by Arts Council England National Lottery Grants, Leeds Inspired, East Street Arts and Curatorspace. Julia was joined by Carys Fieldson (marketing) and Ian Jackson (production) and an advisory group composed of Meghan Goodeve, Georgia Taylor Aguilar and Claye Bowler to help shape and deliver the exhibition programme.
After a three year break, Threshold is re-opening in our Burley Park space for a new programme in 2025. Our 2025 programme is made possible through edition sales and gifts from supporters. We are necessarily working with smaller budgets for each exhibition, but we are excited to provide a platform the artists we work with. If you would like to support Threshold’s future exhibitions, please get in touch with us, we would love to link with new partners and supporters. Alternatively, you can support Threshold and artists directly by the purchase works of art and publications through Threshold Editions.
At Threshold we understand that sculpture is a challenging practice to sustain. Sculptors require studios, production time, access to technical support, funding and crucially exhibition space to test their ideas spatially with an audience. Our programme aims to provide a unique test space for artists to experiment with their work in the open air. Artists are asked to take risks and meet new challenges of situating the work in our space, in the centre of a residential terraced street. Threshold’s site and setting provides a rich contextual opportunity for exhibiting artists, but it can also present many new challenges in terms of material consideration of the work and installation.
We encourage artists and visitors to explore and consider the context of the exhibition space; what it means to be on the threshold between public and private, exposed and intimate.
Threshold is proudly based in Burley LS4, which is an inner-city borough of Leeds. We are passionate and inspired by the area’s working class, industrial heritage which is largely characterised by red brick back-to-back Victorian terraces which once housed mill workers in the 19th Century who worked in numerous mills along the River Aire. Founder and curator, Julia McKinlay works closely with exhibiting artists to explore how this specific context can be explored or responded to within the work.
