Sculpture in the Garden: The Storytellers

Contemporary figurative sculpture in a hidden garden

Worcester College, Oxford, 1 May – 5 July 2026

Curated by Iwona Blazwick and Katie Delamere, Curators Inc.

Grace Schwindt. When I Remember Through You,2025

Reza Aramesh, Leilah Babirye, Anderson Borba, Dorothy Cross, Hazel Dowling, Kira Freije, Elisabeth Frink, Antony Gormley, Jarad Jackson, Oren Pinhassi, Lucia Pizzani, Grace Schwindt, Daniel Silver, Renee So, Francis Upritchard

A magical park sets the stage for an exploration of figurative sculpture today.

Right in the heart of Oxford, yet hidden behind a medieval wall, lie the grounds of Worcester College – complete with a park, lake and orchard. Fourteen artists hailing from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Oceania take visitors on a journey around Worcester College’s verdant gardens and historic architecture, each with a story to tell.

Artists around the world are turning again to the body in sculpture. Their outdoor statuary may draw on ancient or indigenous forms; it may metamorphose from human to vegetal. Some sculptures are totemic, others expressionist. Each work engages us in a drama that may be poetic, symbolic or sensual. Two 2025 graduates from The Ruskin School of Art have created performances that animate both sculpture and landscape.

The exhibition is structured in five acts, each inspired by a line from Shakespeare, as a tribute to the outdoor plays performed for over 90 years by the Buskins, Worcester’s student dramatic society – the oldest in Oxford.

Act 1 commences in the central quad framed by medieval cottages and a Hawksmoor façade; We know what we are, but not what we may be features sculpture by Antony Gormley, Kira Freije and Daniel Silver each of whom explore form as a state of becoming. A lush herbaceous garden frames Act 2: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin with sculptures that metamorphose the human into the vegetal by Anderson Borba, Lucia Pizzani and Grace Schwindt. Dorothy Cross and Reza Aramesh appear in Act 3: Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones, their marble statuary arranged around an ornamental lake, infused with poignant expressionism. In Act 4: There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture figures by Elisabeth Frink and Francis Upritchard are occupied in a parallel world. Act 5: Thou, Nature, art my goddess sees 2

Leilah Babirye, Oren Pinhassi and Renee So delve into cultural tradition and identity to create totemic deities.

Hazel Dowling with Lorna Ough and Jarad Jackson stage performances that bring together dance, poetry and the remarkable natural environment that unfolds across the Worcester College campus.

The exhibition is free of charge and is generously supported by the Sculpture in the Garden Patrons Circle; Hiscox and Art Fabrications.

Provost of Worcester College, David Isaac, Lord Isaac CBE, said: “Worcester is a forward-looking college that supports its students to excel academically and to engage in society, including through the arts. For the past 300 years, Worcester’s magnificent gardens have played host to generations of students and Shakespeare plays. Sculpture is a natural fit in our grounds and I’m delighted that The Storytellers will showcase the work of exciting contemporary sculptors; it will undoubtedly please and provoke our students in equal measure. I can’t wait to see how these phenomenal works respond to our big green canvas and how the Worcester community responds to them in turn.”