A MAJOR exhibition of digital art which forms the centrepiece of York Mediale 2020 will now run until May 2021. 

Human Nature opened at York Art Gallery on October 21 and was due to close on January 24 2021 but new national COVID-19 restrictions have meant the exhibition closed on Thursday (November 4) for at least a month. 

However, due to its initial success with the public, exhibition partners York Museums Trust and York Mediale have been able to extend the run of the exhibition until May 9 2021 to enable more people to visit the innovative installations on show.

York Art Gallery hopes to be able to reopen in mid-December but will continue to monitor the situation in the coming weeks

Dr Beatrice Bertram, Senior Curator at York Art Gallery, said: “We are thrilled to be able to announce the extension of Human Nature until spring next year. The exhibition is a truly beautiful and immersive experience and we had been getting wonderful feedback from visitors who managed to see it before the latest lockdown. Now we are able to extend this major, thought-provoking show, we hope many more people will be able to come and enjoy it when we reopen, hopefully in early December.”

Tom Higham, Creative Director at York Mediale said, “The Human Nature exhibition was conceived and influenced by 2020, for 2020. It seems fitting that, as we head into a second lockdown, we are able to give this groundbreaking exhibition room to breathe and expand. Our thanks go to the team at York Art Gallery, who has recognised the world-class quality of the work, have managed to reshape their schedule so that Human Nature can run till May.

"We’re also hugely grateful to all of the artists included in the show who have worked with us so fast this week to ensure we could extend the run. We are delighted that we can announce this news today and look forward to welcoming visitors back to the gallery in December, with lots of wonderful content to come between now and then.”