Plensa’s sculpture gives physical form to the intangible, using the body as a way of exploring what it means to be human and engaging with universal themes: love, memory, language and despair. Other works need the presence of a human body to make them complete, such as Song of Songs. These glass cabins, immersed in coloured light, are only large enough for one visitor to enter and are spaces for solitary contemplation.

Plensa has an international reputation and has completed significant public art projects around the world, including the momentous Crown Fountain (2004) in Chicago. In 2009 he created Dream, a 20-metre high sculpture for St Helens as part of Channel 4’s Big Art Project.

Wonderland I (1993) and illuminated sculpture La Llarga Nit (Blind) (2010) have been lent to YSP by the artist for long-term loan.