Wysing Arts Centre

What role can cultural spaces that are custodians of land, like Wysing, play in fostering a sense of ownership in public space? How can the resources that the culture sector currently holds contribute better to grassroots justice work? What are the imaginative possibilities of divestment?

Catch up with the final archived part of our event 'From the Ground Up: The Gathering', July 2022, an event which takes Wysing’s rural context, abundant land and neighbouring Fenland (at risk due to climate change, and rich in histories of land-based struggle) as a rich context for thought and action about topics including land rights, ownership and access, sustainability, environmental time and crip time, growing, wildness and racial justice.

Khairani Barokka and Bella Milroy in-conversation, chaired by Hannah Wallis

Revisit our very special celebration event for Dr Uma Breakdown's show at Wysing 'Earth A.D.'

Uma has invited researcher, curator and artist Angela YT Chan and Dr Tom Dillon to discuss systems of archiving, collapse and repair and queer counter-culture science fiction.

Angela YT Chan discusses how self-archiving current climate experiences resists future data gaps in our inherently political climate histories, and Tom Dillon presents a short presentation on the science fiction writer Michael Moorcock, focusing on his relationship with 60s counterculture and queerness, before a conversation following the overlaps of these ideas with the research behind Uma's show.

From the Ground Up: The Gathering ArchiveJames Boyce & Elsa Noterman in-conversation

Revisit some highlights from our mini-festival 'From the Ground Up: The Gathering', which took place on 16 July 2022.

Fenland communities fought to keep their common land for over a hundred years. Strategies to quash these lively resistance movements in the 17th century became a blueprint for Britain’s Imperial project. Access to space in Cambridgeshire remains contested; the countryside and parts of the City are inaccessible to many. How can we learn from the past, change structures of ownership and control, to re-shape access to public space and the land? Join James Boyce, award-winning author of Imperial Mud: the Fight for the Fens, 2020, in conversation with Dr Elsa Noterman, Junior Research Fellow and Director of Studies for Geography at Queens' College Cambridge. The conversation is chaired by Rosie Cooper, Wysing's Director.

Catch up with a very special Desktop Studio Visit to celebrate our gallery exhibition ‘A Tender Ascent’.  

Maëva Berthelot and Coby Sey were joined by Wysing’s Senior Curator of Programmes, John Eng Kiet Bloomfield, to discuss their exhibition ‘A Tender Ascent’ and the research and influences behind the collaboration. Using a number of references from the project as a framework for an informal chat, they touched on topics including the role of chance, role reversal and collaborating during Covid-19. 

The in-conversation event was followed by an opportunity for questions from the audience.  

Listen to an audio tour of Linda Stupart, Carl Gent, and Kelechi Anucha's exhibition 'and then, a harrowing' at Wysing. The tour features a described walkthrough of the exhibition given by Linda Stupart and Carl Gent, and explores some of the research and process that went into the making of the show and the artists' residencies at Wysing over 2020/2021.

Revisit sound artist and DJ Ain Bailey in conversation with curator Hannah Wallis for the third in our series of Desktop Studio Visits. Desktop Studio Visits are a new strand in our online events programme aimed at highlighting research from recent artists-in-residence and platforming new works in progress.

Discussion focused on the development of Version, Ain Bailey’s current exhibition at Wysing Arts Centre, curated by Hannah Wallis as DASH Curator-in-Residence. The in-conversation event was followed by an opportunity for questions from the audience.

The artists Ain Bailey mentioned at the end are: Phoebe Collings-James, Adam Farah, Jimmy Robert, Jasleen Kaur, Rehana Zaman, Sonia Boyce, Claudette Johnson, Helen Cammock, Remi Graves, and Junior Boakye-Yiadom.

Caroline Wendling presents Hypoteinousa, a Test Space commission for Wysing Arts Centre. Taking its title from the Greek word meaning ‘stretching under’, Hypoteinousa is a sound walk through Wysing’s rural landscape. In dialogue with the nineteenth-century science fiction novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Jules Verne), Hypoteinousa draws on Wysing's topography: a landscape shaped by its wildlife, ancient geologies, and the many voices of Wysing’s artists and their interventions at the site.

Desktop Studio Visits are a new strand in our online events programme aimed at highlighting research from recent artists-in-residence and platforming new works in progress. 

For this event, Crystalmess (Christelle Oyiri-K) was joined by Wysing Curator and Acting Head of Programme John Eng Kiet Bloomfield to discuss a recent residency at Wysing. Using a number of artefacts from the residency as a framework for an informal chat, they touched on Christelle’s experimentation with sound synthesis and field recordings from a research trip to Guadeloupe and Martinique and work developing a new body of work exploring the intersection of anti-environmentalism, state secrecy and institutional racism. 

Content warning: this conversation includes discussion of racism, miscarriage, and rape.

In our first Desktop Studio Visit with Ruth Angel Edwards, hear more about the research and references that have shaped and come out of her residency at Wysing over the past year through a conversation with Wysing's curator John Eng Kiet Bloomfield. Ruth Angel Edwards' ongoing residency at Wysing has included various collaborations and investigations, to produce sound, radio, video works and research.

Desktop Studio Visits are a new strand in our online events programme aimed at highlighting research from recent artists-in-residence and platforming new works in progress. 

In collaboration with Art Exchange, we presented A Lament for Power: Screening and In-Conversation with artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, and John Eng Kiet Bloomfield, Curator / Acting Head of Programme at Wysing.  

The screening and in-conversation took place on 3rd February 2021, and this podcast is a recording of the in-conversation.

The event began with a screening of A Lament for Power, the outcome of a nine-month residency by artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy at the University of Essex, exhibited at Art Exchange in 2020. This ambitious new film explores the ethics of scientific discovery and the complex relationship between science, politics and race in our age of avatars, video gaming and DNA Ancestry testing. This was followed by an in-conversation between the artists and John Eng Kiet Bloomfield, with an opportunity for questions from the audience.

The following work is a podcast which combines text work, research, and musings, examining gut health and herbal cure associated with laxatives. Grounded in a Western medicinal history, the podcast is structured around a piece of writing called It is proven, a fictional response to the medieval Welsh medical text The Physicians of Myddfai. The podcast also brings in Hildegard von Bingen’s writings on the stomach, astrology as a form of medicine, and a reading list of medieval to Renaissance medical writings.

CONTENT WARNING
This podcast contains mature language and references to eating disorders, including restrictive and bingeing behaviours, and makes reference to fatphobia. The discussion and works included centre on digestion and excretion and discuss physiological and bodily processes and fluids graphically and in some detail.

In the fourth and final podcast of our series hosted by artist and Wysing Trustee, Harold Offeh, we hear from curator and writer Taylor Le Melle on their thoughts on Wysing. Taylor was Curator in-residence during 2019 and curated a series of events alongside the exhibition Boundary + Gesture.

In the third of our new podcast series, Wysing Director, Donna Lynas, speaks to artist and Wysing Trustee, Harold Offeh about how Wysing has been developed over the fifteen years she has been in post.

In the second of our series of four podcasts hosted by artist and WysingTrustee, Harold Offeh and recorded in our Wysing Polyphonic studio, hear from Terry Brooks, one of the original founders and Directors of Wysing. Structured around three questions that draw out personal relationships, perspectives, and histories with Wysing, each episode will give a glimpse into a moment of Wysing's 30 year history.

In the first of a series of podcasts on how Wysing began and has been developed, have a listen to artist and Wysing Trustee, Harold Offeh, in conversation with Jenny Brooks, one of the original founders and Directors of Wysing. Structured around three questions that draw out personal relationships, perspectives, and histories with Wysing, each episode will give a glimpse into a moment of Wysing’s 30 year history.

Recording of an in-conversation as part of The Rural Assembly, 22 June 2019 at Wysing Arts Centre. For more information about the event, please visit our website, here: http://www.wysingartscentre.org/archive/events/the_rural_assembly/2019 

In advance of their performances later in the day, this conversation between artists Jade Monserrat and Harold Offeh, considered critical approaches and practices from the position of being Black British artists in rural environments. Chaired by curator Hansi Momodu Gordon.

A full transcript is available here as a PDF:

Our programme of residencies, retreats, exhibitions and events bring many fascinating artists, thinkers, musicians and curators to Wysing each year. Many of these stay in our 17th century farmhouse, the beating heart of our site. The farmhouse has long been a site of exchange, best encapsulated by the kitchen table where ideas are shared over a meal and by a conceptual work in the house by artist Ruth Beale, which asks residents to leave a book as a contribution to a growing library. In this new podcast series, we will be taking inspiration from this role the farmhouse plays to focus a conversation on the idea of exchange, asking visitors to talk about something they've brought to the house and something they're taking away with them when they leave.

This podcast is a recording from the event that closed our gallery exhibition more of an avalanche with an afternoon of talks and conversations expanding on the themes it raised. The day featured contributions from Nick Aikens, Curator at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven and co-curator of recent exhibitions 'The Place Is Here' and 'Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective'; artists Raju Rage, Trishna Shah, Leah Clements and Phoebe Collings-James; and music producer Elijah. 

In this episode, the contributors reconvened for a roundtable discussion chaired by Nick Aikens.

This podcast is a recording from the event that closed our gallery exhibition more of an avalanche with an afternoon of talks and conversations expanding on the themes it raised. The day featured contributions from Nick Aikens, Curator at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven and co-curator of recent exhibitions 'The Place Is Here' and 'Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective'; artists Raju Rage, Trishna Shah, Leah Clements and Phoebe Collings-James; and music producer Elijah. 

In this episode, music producer Elijah presented 'Last Dance', a timely and urgent investigation into the rapid changes affecting UK club culture, and the impact of those changes on music and youth culture. 

This podcast is a recording from the event that closed our gallery exhibition more of an avalanche with an afternoon of talks and conversations expanding on the themes it raised. The day featured contributions from Nick Aikens, Curator at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven and co-curator of recent exhibitions 'The Place Is Here' and 'Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective'; artists Raju Rage, Trishna Shah, Leah Clements and Phoebe Collings-James; and music producer Elijah. 

In this episode, current artist-in-residence Phoebe Collings-James talked about the new work she is developing with Last Yearz Interesting Negro/Jamila Johnson-Small in relation to disobedience and sound as a weapon.

This podcast is a recording from the event that closed our gallery exhibition more of an avalanche with an afternoon of talks and conversations expanding on the themes it raised. The day featured contributions from Nick Aikens, Curator at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven and co-curator of recent exhibitions 'The Place Is Here' and 'Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective'; artists Raju Rage, Trishna Shah, Leah Clements and Phoebe Collings-James; and music producer Elijah. 

In this episode, expanding on themes in the exhibition of sickness and illness, artist Leah Clements discussed ideas around ‘crip’ theory and talked about a new network of art practitioners who will be in residence later this year at Wysing.

This podcast is a recording from the event that closed our gallery exhibition more of an avalanche with an afternoon of talks and conversations expanding on the themes it raised. The day featured contributions from Nick Aikens, Curator at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven and co-curator of recent exhibitions 'The Place Is Here' and 'Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective'; artists Raju Rage, Trishna Shah, Leah Clements and Phoebe Collings-James; and music producer Elijah. 

In this episode, exhibition artist Raju Rage invited Trishna Shah, an artist and contributor to the interview portion of the work, to be in conversation. Taking their contribution to ‘more of an avalanche’ as a starting point, they discussed their research and experiences of activism that informed the work.

This podcast is a recording from the event that closed our gallery exhibition more of an avalanche with an afternoon of talks and conversations expanding on the themes it raised. The day featured contributions from Nick Aikens, Curator at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven and co-curator of recent exhibitions 'The Place Is Here' and 'Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective'; artists Raju Rage, Trishna Shah, Leah Clements and Phoebe Collings-James; and music producer Elijah. 

This episode is a recording of the conversation between Nick Aikens, Curator at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven and 'more of an avalanche' curator John Bloomfield, which opened the event. Nick's recent projects  'The Place Is Here' and 'Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective' are situated in the 1970s and 1980s and it was hoped that by revisting this research, the conversation could provide a broader historical context for 'more of an avalanche' and an opportunity to view the work through a longer historical lens.