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Artists in Conversation

, –
Past
  • Free
  • Discussion
  • British Sign Language interpreted
  • Hearing loop
  • Speech-to-text
  • Wheelchair accessible
Two full-length portraits placed side by side. On the left, a person with short grey hair, dressed in a black jacket, jeans and trainers, stands casually with arms folded. On the right, a person with shoulder‑length curly hair, wearing a navy textured cardigan, dark jeans and boots, stands with hands on hips next to a tall carved wooden sculpture resembling a tree trunk.
Artists Ian Beesley and Serena Korda, Photos: Laura Mate and Jesse Wild.

What you’ll do

Join curator Shamita Sharmacharja and artists Serena Korda and Ian Beesley for a panel discussion exploring the stories behind works in our new exhibition, ‘The Coming of Age’. 

Together, they’ll discuss how their work engages with experiences of health, people and place, and how societies can adapt to support us all as we grow older. 

Serena will reflect on how her practice challenges stereotypes around ageing and addresses the cultural erasure of older women. Ian will share insights from his 20-year collaboration with the pioneering Born in Bradford life course study, and from The Unfurlings – banners of hope and change created with people living with dementia.

The discussion will be followed by a Q&A, where you’ll have a chance to ask questions. The exhibition will be open from 18:00 to 19:00 for you to visit before the event begins. The discussion will then run from 19:00 to 20:30.

Dates

, –
Past

Need to know

Location

We’ll be in the Forum. To get there, take the lift or stairs up to level 1 and then follow the signs through the ‘Being Human’ gallery.

Place not guaranteed

Booking a ticket for a free, in-person event does not guarantee you a place. You should aim to arrive 15 minutes before the event is scheduled to start to claim your place. If you do not arrive on time, your place may be given to someone on the waiting list.

Waiting list

If this event is fully booked, you may still be able to attend. We will operate a waiting list, which opens 30 minutes before this event starts. Arrive early, and we’ll give you a numbered ticket. If there are any unfilled places just before the start time, we will invite you to enter in order of ticket number.

British Sign Language interpreted

This event will have British Sign Language interpretation.

Hearing loop

There will be a hearing loop at this event.

Speech-to-text

This event will be live-transcribed. The captions will be displayed on a screen in-venue.

Wheelchair accessible

This event is wheelchair accessible, which means people in wheelchairs can access the location with relative ease.

For more information, please visit our Accessibility page. If you have any queries about accessibility, please email us at access@wellcomecollection.org or call

Our event terms and conditions

About your contributors

Shamita Sharmacharja

Facilitator

Shamita is a curator at Wellcome Collection. In addition to ‘The Coming of Age’, she has curated exhibitions such as ‘Jason and the Adventure of 254’ (2024), ‘Genetic Automata’ (2023), ‘Play Well’ (2019) and ‘Can Graphic Design Save Your Life?’ (2017). Before Wellcome Collection, Shamita worked as a curator at the Whitechapel Gallery and assistant curator at Tate Modern.

A person with shoulder-length wavy hair, wearing a dark textured jacket with a contrasting collar and two round buttons, faces the camera against a plain light background.

Serena Korda

Speaker

Serena is an artist whose multimedia, installation-based practice reimagines historic narratives through a feminist lens and draws inspiration from myths, folklore, witchcraft and magic. She received the Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists in 2021 and was the Norma Lipan/BALTIC Fellow in Ceramic Sculpture at Newcastle University from 2016 to 2018. Her work has been shown at the Hayward Gallery, Camden Art Centre, Glasgow International, Wellcome Collection and Turner Contemporary, and is held in major public collections including the Arts Council Collection and Tullie Museum and Art Gallery.

A person with short grey hair, wearing a dark jacket, is shown from the shoulders up, standing against a dark, flat background and facing the camera.

Ian Beesley

Speaker

Ian Beesley has been documenting the north of England for 50 years. His early work in the 1970s concentrated on the everyday lives of working people. In the 1980s he proceeded to document the demise of heavy industry and its impact on community. More recently he has concentrated on health and social issues including fuel poverty, environmental pollution and the representation of dementia. He has been the artist in residence for ‘Born in Bradford’, a longitudinal birth and family cohort study since 2006. His work is held in the collections of  the Science Museum Group, the V&A and the Smithsonian.