SPACE / TIME / LIFE: A Gathering
Friday 9 February
Wysing Arts Centre, 11am-6pm
In-person and livestreamed
FREE

Click here to book your ticket.

Photo: Li Yuan-chia gardening in the grounds of the LYC Museum and Art Gallery, 1970s. Image courtesy of Li Yuan-chia Archive, The University of Manchester Library.

This one-day, lively gathering of artists, academics and curators takes the innovative, generous LYC Museum & Art Gallery (the LYC, operating between 1972–1983 in rural Cumbria) and the extraordinary legacy of its founder, artist / organiser Li Yuan-chia, as inspiration. In a set of converted farm buildings bought by Li Yuan-chia from his friend, the painter Winifred Nicholson, the LYC offered gallery space, a children’s room, a library, performance areas, a printing press, a communal kitchen, and a garden.

SPACE / TIME / LIFE takes place across Wysing’s rural spaces. It includes contributions from a wide range of international practitioners united in their imaginative, provocative approaches to contemporary creative practice, nature, and the complexities of rural life.

The day includes a performance by Aaron Tan, films by Li Yuan-Chia, workshops with Anna Brownsted and Charwei Tsai, a reading by Ama Josephine Budge, conversations with Bella Milroy, The Field, Ysanne Holt, Rosemary Shirley, Hammad Nasar and Rafał Zajko, and a collective meal prepared by Sean Roy Parker. It will also be the first chance to see Corns and Callouses, a new large-scale commission by Rafał Zajko on the front of Wysing’s building, supported by the Art Fund Reimagine grant.

This event is organised in collaboration by Wysing Arts Centre, Kettle’s Yard and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art to coincide with the Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends exhibition. It is open to anyone interested in exploring these themes and ideas.

The event is primarily in person, with the talks livestreamed with closed captions via Wysing Broadcasts.

Tickets and Transport 

You can book tickets for in-person and online attendance by clicking here.

Tickets are free but numbers are limited. Registration essential. 

Transport to and from Cambridge train station can be provided. To reserve a space on minibus/taxi ride from Cambridge train station to Wysing (outbound and/or return). Please purchase the necessary ‘Bus’ tickets in addition to your ‘Conference Ticket’. 

Further details about exact arrival/departure times to follow. 

If you have any access requirements please contact us in advance by emailing events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

Programme Timetable

11:00 - Arrival and coffee 

11:15 - Welcome and introduction to the day 

11:30 - Performance by Aaron Tan, and a screening of selections from Li Yuan-chia’s films (Livestream option) 

12:15 - Communal meal, created by Sean Roy Parker. During lunch, we invite guests to share with their neighbour an object or memory connected to the rural. 

13:30 - Conversation: Space / Time / Life: What the Rural Offers, with The Field, Bella Milroy and Ysanne Holt. (Livestream with closed captions available) 

14:30 - Choice of workshops:
1. Vessel making with Charwei Tsai, in the ceramics studio 
2. A reading by Ama Josephine Budge, in the farmhouse 
3. Drawing workshop with Anna Brownsted, in the Open Studio

15:30 - Tea and flapjacks 

16:00 - Conversation: Beyond landscape: contemporary reflections on rurality, with Rafał Zajko, Dr Rosemary Shirley and Rosie Cooper (Livestream with closed captions available) 

17:00 - Closing performance by Aaron Tan (Livestream with closed captions available)