Anneka French discovers the third edition of the Harewood Biennial, hosted by Harewood House near Leeds, and the artists working in and evolving traditional methods of making

Jakup Ferri’s The Monumentality of Every Day, first shown atVenice Biennale 2022.

PHOTO: LEONIT IBRAHIM

This summer Harewood House celebrates the third edition of the Harewood Biennial, an exciting programme of work by artists and craftspeople taking place across its historic house and gardens in Leeds every two years. For 2024, the work is brought together under the title Create/Elevate, a banner that assembles a diverse range of work within the context of the house itself. Built in 1759, the house features commissions by makers and designers of the highest order: furniture from Thomas Chippendale, interior design by Robert Adam and parkland by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. Create/Elevate taps into this rich history, showing ceramics, sculpture and textiles made by different generations of international contemporary makers.

Jakup Ferri, an artist from Pristina, Kosovo, who represented his country in the prestigious Venice Biennale in 2022 with his large-scale textile works, brings an adapted version of the work to Harewood House. Shown for the first time in the UK, The Monumentality of Every Day is made up of multiple embroideries and woven carpets produced collaboratively with women from Albania, Kosovo, Burkina Faso and Suriname and will be shown in Harewood’s Spanish Library, lined in 17th century gilded Spanish leather and filled with bookcases.