The Art House (TAH) is delighted to unveil its Autumn/Winter 2025 programme, presenting a powerful season of exhibitions and events that explore resilience, identity, and connection. Across painting, sculpture, installation, and participatory projects, this season’s programme champions bold voices and invites audiences to experience art as a shared space of creativity and community.
This programme brings together bold new commissions, intimate personal narratives, and joyful events for everyone.
Exhibitions and Projects
Opening the season on 6 September is the solo exhibition When the Dawn Delays, We Rise Anyway by Tonye Ekine. Expanding beyond his acclaimed painting practice, Ekine introduces sculpture for the first time, developing new works on-site at The Art House. Centred on the recurring motif of the Ife bronze mask and the coin as a symbol of value and exchange, the exhibition interrogates questions of heritage, belonging, and cultural resilience. Women wearing the Ife mask appear throughout the works, embodying the quiet strength of those whose labour sustains communities but is too often overlooked.
Running until 11 October, Hidden continues in the Tiled Gallery, a moving collaboration between UK photographer Charles Fox and Cambodian dancer Prum Sisaphantha (Pantha). Retracing Pantha’s journey through the Khmer Rouge regime, the project reveals how she concealed her family’s photographic negatives within her clothing – an act of extraordinary preservation and resistance. Through images, testimony, and an artist book, the exhibition reflects on survival, memory, and the unseen stories we carry.
In October, Dr Victoria Claire presents The Sense of Sculpture (18 October – 1 November), a ground-breaking exhibition experienced through touch, sound, and spatial awareness. As an artist living with total sight loss, Claire challenges the dominance of vision in the arts, inviting audiences into a pitch-black gallery where sculptures are discovered through sensory exploration. Created as her own eyesight has faded, the exhibition offers a deeply personal meditation on resilience and creativity, opening conversations around accessibility and the strength of the human spirit.
Later in the season, artist and writer Emma Bolland transforms the Main Gallery into a live working studio for The Public Dream, developed onsite from 10 November and unveiled fully after normal opening hours during Wakefield’s Light Up festival (21–23 November). Blending drawing, sculpture, and light, the project is inspired by the building’s history as a library – a place of imagination and illumination – and creates a poetic, speculative environment where archives, dreams, and futures converge.
In December, Wakefield-born artist Emily Ryalls presents Divine Archives (6 December–28 February 2026), her first major solo exhibition. Developed through a residency with The Art House and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Ryalls reimagines the body as a living, breathing archive of memory and knowledge. Working with groups of women through performance, photography, and sculpture, the exhibition positions the body as a site of resilience, creativity, and wisdom – challenging us to think differently about how stories are recorded, preserved, and shared.
Events
Alongside these exhibitions, The Art House hosts a vibrant programme of events. September begins with Freedom Festival (27 September), a free day of music, food, and creativity celebrating unity and peace. Families can enjoy The Light Lab during October half term (27 October – 1 November), a glowing neon space filled with playful, drop-in activities. November sees the return of Open Studios and CRAFTED Makers Market (8 November), inviting visitors to explore artists’ studios, take part in free activities, and shop for unique handcrafted gifts.
The festive season at The Art House includes Crafting Christmas workshops (15 November – 13 December), offering the chance to create handmade cards, wreaths, and decorations, and Makers Wonderland (8 November–20 December), transforming the Tiled Gallery into a cosy winter market filled with Yorkshire makers.
During Light Up Wakefield (21–23 November), The Art House Late invites visitors to enjoy extended evening openings, with free family activities, festive treats, and glowing cocktails. Looking ahead to February 2026, The Rhubarb Lounge returns as part of Wakefield’s Rhubarb Festival, transforming the Tiled Gallery into a colourful, immersive celebration of creativity, community, and heritage.
This season includes:
Tonye Ekine: When the Dawn Delays, We Rise Anyway
6 September – 6 November 2025
A bold new exhibition by Tonye Ekine, presenting distinctive new paintings alongside sculpture, a medium newly introduced into his practice. Rooted in storytelling, Ekine’s work reflects on identity, resilience, and belonging, drawing on memory, ancestral inheritance, and postcolonial histories. Created on-site at The Art House, the new sculptures centre on the motif of the coin, questioning value, memory, and the absence of women’s contributions within systems of power.
Charles Fox and Prum Sisaphantha: Hidden
Until 11 October 2025
A moving collaboration retracing Pantha’s journey through the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia (1975–1979), when she concealed her family’s photographic negatives in her clothing. Through photography, text, and an artist’s book, Hidden explores how histories of violence, loss, and survival are carried and shared.
Dr Victoria Claire: The Sense of Sculpture
18 October – 1 November 2025
An immersive exhibition inviting audiences to encounter sculpture through touch, sound, and spatial awareness. Losing her sight due to Retinitis Pigmentosa, Claire pioneers new ways of making and experiencing sculpture, challenging visual dominance and celebrating the power of sensory connection.
Emma Bolland: The Public Dream
21–23 November 2025
Unveiled during Light Up Wakefield, Bolland transforms the Gallery into a poetic installation of drawing, light, and text. Developed through a live working residency, the work explores archives, dreams, and speculative futures, offering audiences the chance to step into a space where imagination takes form.
Emily Ryalls: Divine Archives
6 December 2025–28 February 2026
Wakefield-born artist Emily Ryalls presents a major solo exhibition reimagining the body as a living archive. Through performance, sculpture, and photography, Divine Archives celebrates women’s bodies as vessels of knowledge and resilience, continuing research developed during her Art House x Yorkshire Sculpture Park residency.
Makers Wonderland
8 November–20 December
Step into a spellbinding winter wonderland where the charm of a traditional Christmas market meets the curated elegance of a contemporary art exhibition. Makers Wonderland launches at The Art House on 8 November 2025.
Events
Freedom Festival: A Celebration of Peace and Unity at the Art House
27 September 2025, 10:00 16:00
Join us for an inspiring and fun day of creativity, connection and community at our Freedom Festival! Expect joyful celebrations of peace, unity, and freedom through music, art, creative events, food, and shared stories.
October Half term – The Light Lab
27 October-1 November 9:30-16:00
This October half term, discover The Light Lab – a neon, glow-in-the-dark art space for families of all ages. Enjoy free, self-directed drop-in activities, from playful activity sheets to hands-on luminous craft making. Kids can get creative while adults relax with coffee in a cosy, colourful space designed to spark joy.
Open Studios
8 November, 10:00-16:00
Open Studios allows you to meet some of the best contemporary Artists, Designers and Craftspeople in Wakefield. You’ll be able to find out first-hand about their practice, see demonstrations of making processes and view artworks in the place they were created.
CRAFTED Makers Market
8 November, 10:00-16:00
Showcasing hand-crafted products from local Designer-Makers, including textiles, ceramics, jewellery, printmaking and more. You’ll have the chance to shop from 20+ unique makers all in one place!
The Art House Late: Light Up!
21–23 November, various times
Join us 21-23 November for late-night openings during Wakefield’s Light Up festival. Enjoy free family glow-in-the-dark activities, explore our new Makers Wonderland exhibition, and unwind with winter drinks or glowing cocktails from our Coffee Shop. A vibrant evening of creativity and celebration – free entry, all welcome!
Crafting Christmas: Festive Workshops at The Art House
15 November–13 December, various times.
Join us for a festive-themed creative workshop this Christmas. Whether you want to learn to make ceramic tree decorations or create your own festive wreath, we have a creative workshop for you!
The Rhubarb Lounge
From 17–22 February 2026
The Art House transforms its Tiled Gallery into The Rhubarb Lounge, a cosy, colourful space with rhubarb-inspired drinks, sweet treats, and free family activities. Celebrate Wakefield’s rhubarb heritage with creativity in a vibrant lounge where all ages can relax and explore together. We’ll also host free drop-in workshops, from Screen Printing with Rhubarb to Cameraless Photography with Rhubarb.