Ever since Snape Maltings Concert Hall was created in 1967 artists have exhibited and installed work throughout the site, notably pieces by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Tracey Emin, Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas and Ryan Gander.

Sunk into the reeds in front of the Concert Hall, Migrant comprises two identical lozenge forms, approximately three meters in length. Fabricated in bronze with black patina, they are built like ships with bronze rivets and are supported on keels which lift them to the tops of the reeds.

Thanks to the generosity of the Henry Moore Foundation, Snape Maltings has been loaned another member of Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure family of sculptures.

This work by conceptual artist Ryan Gander was made for the Great Exhibition of the North (2018) to celebrate the history of Northern innovation. It consists of 10 black sculptures made from a special glow-in-the-dark concrete material, each describing an object originally designed to emit or shine light. Each element is complete with a section of shiny mooring chain reminiscent of buoys or anchors, referencing the maritime history of the River Tyne and resonating with the Suffolk coast.

Together the sculptures appear like a series of gigantic board game pieces or trinkets from a charm bracelet, outsized as if belonging to the child of a giant.

Commissioned by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2018

Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures The Family of Man left Snape Maltings in March 2022 to be temporarily loaned to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam for its Hepworth exhibition and returned early 2023.

Ancestor I, Ancestor II, and Parent I, collectively known as The Family of Man (1970) from ‘Nine Figures on a Hill’ were installed at Snape Maltings in 1976, the year after Dame Barbara’s death. The sculptures are the property of the Fitzwilliam Museum and were placed on permanent loan to the Aldeburgh Festival (now Britten Pears Arts) as a memorial to Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears at the request of the Hepworth Estate.