Event Category: Talks

  • Sensory Symposium

    Sensory Symposium

    10am-4pm 

    Exploring the philosophy, practice and learning behind MK Gallery’s two-year Sensory Engagement Partnership with specialist practitioner Collar & Cuffs Co, developed alongside MK Gallery’s community partners, including adults with learning disabilities and young people with visual impairments. Together they have created public sensory responses to six major exhibitions, including Andy Warhol: Portrait of America, Paz Errázuriz: Dare to Look and Euan Uglow: An Arc from the Eye. 

    Beyond making the case for sensory engagement, this symposium explores how it is reshaping interpretation, meaning-making and public engagement across the cultural sector. Through discussion and creative participation, delegates will experience these approaches in practice. 

    With specialist guest speakers, gallerist, producer and curator, Jennifer Gilbert (Jennifer Lauren Gallery) and artists from Blue Room inclusive arts project (The Bluecoat, Liverpool). Delegates will also have the opportunity at lunchtime to visit MK Gallery’s highly anticipated landmark exhibition, L.S. Lowry. 

    This event is designed for those working in the arts, museum or disability sectors, who are interested in inclusive approaches to interpretation, co-creation and accessibility in cultural spaces.

    Tickets include a full day programme of talks and activities, plus lunch and refreshments. Ticket prices are on a sliding scale to reflect the different contexts in which delegates may be attending.  

    Large Organisations / NPO: £65 

    Small / Mid-Size Organisations: £55 

    Freelance / Individual: £40 

    If cost may be a barrier to your attendance, please contact Sophie on sbennett@localhost / 01908 558319, as a limited number of bursary tickets are available. 

    If you have any access requirements you would like to make us aware of, for example hearing impairment, visual impairment, or a physical access requirement, please contact Rosie via rmay@localhost / 01908 558315. 

    This project has been made possible through the Art Fund Reimagine grant. With additional thanks to Engage for supporting this event.

     

         

         

  • Walking Festival Tour: Public Art & Architecture in MK

    Walking Festival Tour: Public Art & Architecture in MK

    Join MK Gallery Tour Guide Andrew for walking tour of the public art and architecture around MK Gallery and the stunning adjacent Campbell Park. Starting at the gallery this walk will take a leisurely stroll with regular stops to talk about points of interest on route.
    MK Gallery are delighted to once again be taking part in the MK Walking Festival in partnership with The Parks Trust.
    Saturday 9th May, 2026 | 11.00am- 12.30pm
    Meeting at: MK Gallery, Margaret Powell Square, CMK
    What 3 Words: trespass.abruptly.hurtles
    Good to know:
    There are no toilet facilities or refreshments available within the park, the closest are back at the gallery, so why not stay for a beverage afterwards?
    We advise wearing comfortable shoes and dressing for the weather.
    Whilst the route is accessible, and follows a paved path it may include some inclines.
    We will pass number of benches enroute
    Dogs are not permitted on this walk, except for assistance dogs.
    Young people must be accompanied and supervised by an appropriate adult. The content of this walk is recommended for children age 12 and up.
  • Lynette Yiadom-Boakye in Conversation

    Lynette Yiadom-Boakye in Conversation

    Saturday 8 November, 2025 | 2.30pm

    Join us for a rare opportunity to hear a discussion with one of Britain’s most exciting figurative painters. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye will be in conversation with Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, interdisciplinary artists and founders of The Otolith Group, at MK Gallery’s Skyroom. This event will give audiences a rare insight into her creative practice.

    Ticket information
    Admission to the event is £10
    Admission to both the event and exhibition £17.50

    Galleries are open between 10am and 5pm

  • Philippe Sands in conversation

    Philippe Sands in conversation

    Philippe Sands in conversation with Rob Gifford, co-curator of StonyWords, about his new book 38 Londres Street.

    Philippe is Professor of Public Understanding of Law at UCL and a practising barrister. The house at 38 Londres Street, Santiago is home to the legacies of two men whose personal stories span continents and decades of atrocity: Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile, and Walther Rauff, a Nazi SS officer responsible for the use of gas vans in World War II. In the book, Sands blends personal memoir, historical detective work and courtroom drama to probe a secret double story of mass murder.

    Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing

    Fri 12 September, 5pm

  • Vanessa Bell Conference (Online)

    Vanessa Bell Conference (Online)

    10am – 5pm

    Please note, the online link has now been sent to attendees. If you have not received a link, or booked an online ticket after 22nd Jan, please email ccunningham@localhost.

    This one-day conference includes an exciting line up of experts and enthusiasts.

    A link to live stream the conference will be emailed to ticket purchasers shortly before the event.

    Click here to download the Vanessa Bell Conference Programme

    Contributors

    Dr Rebecca Birrell is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of St Andrews and writer of This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early Twentieth Century (Bloomsbury, 2021).

    Dr Grace Brockington is Associate Professor in the History of Art at the University of Bristol. She is a specialist in modern British art, with particular interests in the connections between art and theatre, internationalism and literature. She has written on Vanessa Bell and the Bloomsbury Group, particularly in relation to the peace movement in the First World War.

    Dr Darren Clarke is Head of Collections, Research and Exhibitions at the Charleston Trust. He has curated several exhibitions including Orlando at the present time (2018), and Post-Impressionist Living: The Omega Workshops (2019).

    Rob Gifford is a cultural activist and co-curator of StonyWords, an annual community literary festival in Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes.

    Dr Wendy Hitchmough is emeritus senior lecturer at the University of Sussex. She is the author of The Bloomsbury Look (Yale, 2020) and former curator at Charleston (2001-13). She is the author of a forthcoming book, Vanessa Bell. The Life and Art of a Bloomsbury Radical (Yale, 2025).

    Megan Hunter is a prizewinning novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. She is the author of three novels: The End We Start From (2017), which was adapted into a feature film, The Harpy (2020) and Days of Light (forthcoming in 2025). In September 2024 her dramatic monologue Salt of the Earth premiered at Venice Film Festival. This contribution is generously supported by the Calliope Arts Foundation.

    Dr Hana Leaper is Reader in History of Art and Exhibition Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. She completed her PhD Vanessa Bell and the Significance of Form in 2014.

    Dr Sophie Pickford is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge whose current research focuses on the cross-cultural interaction between the Bloomsbury Group and the Ballets Russes in the 1920s and ‘30s.

    Frances Spalding is an art historian, biographer and cultural historian. Projects include the biography Vanessa Bell (Bloomsbury, 2006) and an exhibition on Virginia Woolf (National Portrait Gallery, 2014).

    Dr Stephanie Taylor is Emeritus Professor at the Open University, Milton Keynes, co-author of Contemporary Identities of Creativity and Creative Work (Routledge 2016), co-editor of Gender and Creative Labour (Wiley-Blackwell 2015) and author of Narratives of Identity and Place (2009).

    About the exhibition

    Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) was a pioneering modernist painter and founding member of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of influential English artists, writers and intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century. Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour at MK Gallery – her largest-ever solo show – provides an in-depth overview that includes drawings, paintings, ceramics and furniture.

  • Vanessa Bell Conference

    Vanessa Bell Conference

    10am – 5pm

    In-person tickets are now sold out for this event however online tickets are still available via the online conference page. If you would like to join our waiting list for in-person tickets please email press@localhost with the subject title Vanessa Bell Conference WL.

    This one-day conference in MK Gallery’s 150-seat Sky Room auditorium includes an exciting line up of experts and enthusiasts and will also be live-streamed online. Tickets to the conference will include entrance into the exhibition Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour.

    Click here to download the Vanessa Bell Conference Programme

    Contributors

    Dr Rebecca Birrell is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of St Andrews and writer of This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early Twentieth Century (Bloomsbury, 2021).

    Dr Grace Brockington is Associate Professor in the History of Art at the University of Bristol. She is a specialist in modern British art, with particular interests in the connections between art and theatre, internationalism and literature. She has written on Vanessa Bell and the Bloomsbury Group, particularly in relation to the peace movement in the First World War.

    Dr Darren Clarke is Head of Collections, Research and Exhibitions at the Charleston Trust. He has curated several exhibitions including Orlando at the present time (2018), and Post-Impressionist Living: The Omega Workshops (2019).

    Rob Gifford is a cultural activist and co-curator of StonyWords, an annual community literary festival in Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes.

    Dr Wendy Hitchmough is emeritus senior lecturer at the University of Sussex. She is the author of The Bloomsbury Look (Yale, 2020) and former curator at Charleston (2001-13). She is the author of a forthcoming book, Vanessa Bell. The Life and Art of a Bloomsbury Radical (Yale, 2025).

    Megan Hunter is a prizewinning novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. She is the author of three novels: The End We Start From (2017), which was adapted into a feature film, The Harpy (2020) and Days of Light (forthcoming in 2025). In September 2024 her dramatic monologue Salt of the Earth premiered at Venice Film Festival. This contribution is generously supported by the Calliope Arts Foundation.

    Dr Hana Leaper is Reader in History of Art and Exhibition Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. She completed her PhD Vanessa Bell and the Significance of Form in 2014.

    Dr Sophie Pickford is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge whose current research focuses on the cross-cultural interaction between the Bloomsbury Group and the Ballets Russes in the 1920s and ‘30s.

    Frances Spalding is an art historian, biographer and cultural historian. Projects include the biography Vanessa Bell (Bloomsbury, 2006) and an exhibition on Virginia Woolf (National Portrait Gallery, 2014).

    Dr Stephanie Taylor is Emeritus Professor at the Open University, Milton Keynes, co-author of Contemporary Identities of Creativity and Creative Work (Routledge 2016), co-editor of Gender and Creative Labour (Wiley-Blackwell 2015) and author of Narratives of Identity and Place (2009).

    About the exhibition

    Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) was a pioneering modernist painter and founding member of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of influential English artists, writers and intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century. Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour at MK Gallery – her largest-ever solo show – provides an in-depth overview that includes drawings, paintings, ceramics and furniture.