Wysing Arts Centre

Wysing Arts Centre

Wysing Arts Centre hosts residencies, commissions and events from our site in Bourn, Cambridgeshire. Arts Council England supported.

  1. The New Block Commission: Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy in conversation: Part two: Q&A

    12/13/2023

    The New Block Commission: Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy in conversation: Part two: Q&A

    To celebrate the launch of The Golden Crown, a new site-based commission from artist Carol Sorhaindo that explores memory, reflection, time and fragmentation, join artists Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy for a conversation exploring their research. The discussion will focus on their shared interests in growing projects and practices which are centred in collaboration and care. The New Block Commission is a new set of commissioning from Wysing Arts Centre. Supported by the Art Fund Reimagine Project, the New Block Commission moves away from indoor, exhibition-based projects to an outdoor site-based approach that makes our work more visible. This event has been published in two sections:  The New Block Commission: Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy in conversation: Part one: Presentations  The New Block Commission: Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy in conversation: Part two: Q&A  On Wysing Broadcasts, this podcast is available as videos with toggleable closed captions. Click ‘CC’ on the YouTube videos to toggle this on or off.  https://www.wysingbroadcasts.art/discover/the-new-block-commission-carol-sorhaindo-and-bella-milroy-in-conversation  You can also listen to the conversation as a podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify and other podcast platforms. About Carol  Carol Sorhaindo is a visual artist with an MA in Creative Practice and a diverse portfolio career. She draws inspiration from nature and landscapes, with a particular interest in plants of economic, health, and ethnobotanical interest on the island of Dominica where she currently lives. Her research extends to use of plants as pigments and fibre extraction for textile dyeing and creative applications. Having lived in both the UK and Dominica, Carol’s own migration story, entangled transatlantic history and impact on mental wellbeing are of key importance. Carol explores the interplay of dark and light, joy and pain which are brought to light through botanical narratives which speak of migration, trauma, African and indigenous knowledge, resistance and healing. Carol also took part in a residency at Wysing in 2022. About Bella  Bella Milroy is an artist and writer who lives in her hometown of Chesterfield, Derbyshire. She works responsively through mediums of sculpture, drawing, photography, text, writing, gardening and curating. She makes work about making work (and being disabled) and not being able to make work (and being disabled). This process-based practice is fundamental to her as a disabled artist. She is continually motivated by concepts of public and private spaces and where the sick and/or disabled body exists within them, themes which emerge throughout much of her work.

    38 min
  2. The New Block Commission: Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy in conversation: Part one: Presentations

    12/13/2023

    The New Block Commission: Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy in conversation: Part one: Presentations

    To celebrate the launch of The Golden Crown, a new site-based commission from artist Carol Sorhaindo that explores memory, reflection, time and fragmentation, join artists Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy for a conversation exploring their research. The discussion will focus on their shared interests in growing projects and practices which are centred in collaboration and care. The New Block Commission is a new set of commissioning from Wysing Arts Centre. Supported by the Art Fund Reimagine Project, the New Block Commission moves away from indoor, exhibition-based projects to an outdoor site-based approach that makes our work more visible. This event has been published in two sections:  The New Block Commission: Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy in conversation: Part one: Presentations  The New Block Commission: Carol Sorhaindo and Bella Milroy in conversation: Part two: Q&A On Wysing Broadcasts, this podcast is available as videos with toggleable closed captions. Click ‘CC’ on the YouTube videos to toggle this on or off.  https://www.wysingbroadcasts.art/discover/the-new-block-commission-carol-sorhaindo-and-bella-milroy-in-conversation You can also listen to the conversation as a podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify and other podcast platforms. About Carol  Carol Sorhaindo is a visual artist with an MA in Creative Practice and a diverse portfolio career. She draws inspiration from nature and landscapes, with a particular interest in plants of economic, health, and ethnobotanical interest on the island of Dominica where she currently lives. Her research extends to use of plants as pigments and fibre extraction for textile dyeing and creative applications.  Having lived in both the UK and Dominica, Carol’s own migration story, entangled transatlantic history and impact on mental wellbeing are of key importance. Carol explores the interplay of dark and light, joy and pain which are brought to light through botanical narratives which speak of migration, trauma, African and indigenous knowledge, resistance and healing. Carol also took part in a residency at Wysing in 2022. About Bella  Bella Milroy is an artist and writer who lives in her hometown of Chesterfield, Derbyshire. She works responsively through mediums of sculpture, drawing, photography, text, writing, gardening and curating. She makes work about making work (and being disabled) and not being able to make work (and being disabled). This process-based practice is fundamental to her as a disabled artist. She is continually motivated by concepts of public and private spaces and where the sick and/or disabled body exists within them, themes which emerge throughout much of her work.

    42 min
  3. Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 2: troublemakers in trinidad 🇹🇹

    10/10/2023

    Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 2: troublemakers in trinidad 🇹🇹

    Guest speaker: Helen Starr (she/her)   With an undercurrent of friendship captured throughout the episode’s joy and laughter, Helen and Seema sit in community with one another and discuss: how caste in Trindidad came not to be, attitudes toward bodily fluids in municipal work, touch and hapticality, how we can hold each other through caste and by a Global South lens - and the ties between all of this and SEEMAWORLD. Can we get to the beat? Content Warning: This podCASTE episode contains strong language around the 38-minute mark     Resources for the episode (as mentioned in the episode):   - Fantasy in the Hold, by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney: HAPTICALITY, OR LOVE   - The metamorphosis of caste among Trinidad Hindus by N. Jayaram   - Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture by Gaiutra Bahadur  About Helen Starr  Helen Starr is an Afro-Carib Trinidadian world-building curator, commissioner, cultural activist and founder of The Mechatronic Library (2010). Her innovative practice establishes a Carib epistemology for digital art focusing on immersive media and AI technologies that express Indigenous concepts such as gender fluidity, skin-thinking, simultaneous multiple realities and nature godded worlds.   Working mainly with artists who have protected characteristics, Helen Starr has commissioned artworks from artists including Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Seema Mattu, Aliyah Hussain, Rebecca Allen, Phoebe Collings James, Kinnari Saraiya and Anna Bunting-Branch, who have gone on to exhibit in museums across the globe.  Helen Starr has curated and produced artworks shown at many exhibitions both nationally (FACT, Liverpool, Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge, QUAD in Derby and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead) and internationally. As board member she was part of the launch of Format Festival’s Mass Isolation Project (2020-23) where image makers from around the world were invited to document the Coronavirus pandemic via Instagram. With over 40,000 submissions from 90 countries it became the largest visual archive of the pandemic. She has published several essays on the duality of Afro-indigeneity, was digital consultant on the Ab Rogers Design team (Wolfson Economic Prize 2021) and has served on the Jury for Ars Electronica Animation Festival in Linz Austria. Starr lives in London with her family and is devoted to the writings of the Jamaican philosopher Sylver Wynter.

    1h 3m
  4. Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 1: girmit histories with izland kuli 🇫🇯

    09/22/2023

    Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 1: girmit histories with izland kuli 🇫🇯

    Guest speaker: Esha Pillay (she/her)   Taking inspiration from her feature in Tamil Futures 2020, Esha Pillay presents her vision for a Tamil future as a low-caste coolie from Fiji - encouraging viewers to further their understanding of gendered and caste-based violence(s) of indentured labour, and their intersections with intergenerational traumas. Resources for the episode (as mentioned in the episode): - Dr. Gabrielle Jamela Hosein & Dr. Lisa Outar, Indo-Caribbean Feminist Thought: Genealogies, Theories, Enactments - Lainy Malkani, Sugar, Sugar: Bitter-Sweet Tales of Indian Migrant Workers - Dr. Margaret Mishra, Between Women: Indenture, Morality and Health Biography  Seema Mattu is a Valmiki world-building trickster, whose multi-channel practice is framed as a theme park—known as SEEMAWORLD. Through the playfulness of intersecting amenities and services, visitors are prompted to portal around a unifying setting weaved by Seema’s own multi-minority personhood. With an interest in lo-fi high fantasy storytelling, SEEMAWORLD fuses both CGI and IRL environment-building, character creation, mixed-media animation, sound design and visual spectacle to explore: systems of caste, South Asian GL (girl(s) love), queer sorcery, fan labour and classifications of gender via digital technologies. Recent projects include work with: Berwick Film and Media Festival, IKON gallery, Eastside Projects, New Art City, Blindspot Gallery and QUAD. In April 2022, she completed both Film London’s FLAMIN Fellowship and a year-long residency with Wysing Arts Centre in March 2023. In December 2021, Seema became a QUAD International Digital Fellow, leading to her first major solo show in Autumn 2023.  Esha Pillay is an Indo-Fijian writer based in the U.S. whose research looks into intergenerational traumas among Indo-Fijian communities who are descendants of indentured labour and Girmit. She has a focus on caste violence throughout Girmit and in the present and challenges the "post-caste" narrative among descendants of indenture. Her own family stories and lived experiences guide her activism and story-telling across various digital platforms. Esha used to host a dedicated Instagram account, coolie_returns, to share further marginalized histories within larger indentured labour histories across different countries, islands, and diasporas. Her educational posts are now accessible on her website (izlandkuli.wixsite.com/cooliereturns), and you can find her other writing and projects at linktr.ee/izland_kuli.

    54 min

About

Wysing Arts Centre hosts residencies, commissions and events from our site in Bourn, Cambridgeshire. Arts Council England supported.