UHArts brings high quality arts to students, staff and local communities. Working with emerging and established artists across all media, UHArts delivers a programme of exhibitions, projects and residencies in the Art and Design Gallery and collaborates with cultural institutions in the UK and Europe.
Based in Hatfield, UHArts (previously known as UH Galleries) is among the most innovative contemporary art spaces in the UK, presenting international contemporary art to the community and wider audiences, in traditional and sometimes challenging ways.
The Art and Design Gallery was constructed in 1998, as part of the University’s School of Creative Arts. It is a large atrium space and also functions as the School’s entrance. With its vast glass-fronted wall and six-metre-high ceilings, the light-diffused gallery offers 250 square metres of floor space. It works particularly well for site-specific and site-sensitive installations.
Since June 2018, UHArts has been working in partnership with the St Albans Museum + Gallery to contribute a vibrant visual arts programme across varied spaces within the St Albans Town Hall building – engaging broadly with artists, audiences and the site.
Editor’s note:
This is a university gallery — to visit one must go on to the campus, which is a collection of buildings that host the often frantic activity of higher education. The gallery itself, though generous and welcoming, feels a little like a space one passes through en route to somewhere else. Nevertheless there is a committed, interesting and diverse programme.