LIVE at Modern Art Oxford

LIVE at Modern Art Oxford presents an new performance by BEIMA (Bureau of Environmental Interpretation and Memory Analysis), a fictional institution born in response to a future ecological catastrophe. BEIMA imagines a world where nature generates thoughts, dreams, and memories, which its Officers capture through images and movements.

Depicting BEIMA Officers at work, the performance unfolds in three intervals. The first scene retells the memories of a fruit as it transforms into a woman. The second scene recreates the dying dreams of the now-extinct Yangtze River dolphin. The third scene portrays an abbey on the eve of its destruction.

The performance features historian Alice Baldock, artist Xinyue Liu, and neuroscientist Mingyu Zhu.

Join our Young Creatives Collective in the Upper Galleries for their interactive piece titled “You are an Archive” – based on Barbara Steveni’s Project “I am an Archive”.

Now, it’s your turn. Bring a personal item and share your story. Pur team will photograph your contribution and add it to an evolving archive of everyone attending LIVE at Modern Art Oxford.

Our Young Creatives Collective are a group of young people who meet every month for amazing sessions run by an awesome team! We discuss creative careers, work with professional artists and move towards earning a Gold Arts Award. Find out more here. 

This triennial publication, based at the University of Oxford, focuses on Contemporary Art in Hokkaido and Okinawa and is co-edited by Haruka Iharada, Koichiro Osaka, and Jason Waite. Spanning the islands of Hokkaido and Ryukyu (Okinawa), the issue features commissioned works by artists and writers reflecting on the diverse artistic legacies across Japan’s archipelago.

Generously supported by the Ruskin School of Art and The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, complimentary copies of this special issue will be available throughout the evening.

Join Holly Broughton, Curator of Communities, Practice, and Participation, for an exclusive introduction to our new exhibition, Art on the Out: Artist Residencies from our Archive (13 March – 1 June 2025), in the Ground Floor Gallery.

Discover unseen archive materials that delve into artist placements facilitated by Modern Art Oxford throughout our history. This is a unique opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insights into the creative processes and collaborations that have shaped our legacy.

For LIVE at Modern Art Oxford the Fine Art BA students at Oxford Brookes University have created a series of films ‘We Found Ourselves’ which respond to Steveni’s film ‘I find myself’. The films document their walk along the River Thames and River Cherwell, picking up objects, examining them, sampling poetry and gathering recollections of their own relationship to the site, the river and acts of walking.

In a collaborative live performance, stills from the films as well as collected newspapers will form a patchwork to camouflage the performers when they read out their own cut-up texts which will be built into a new sonic landscape.

Hyperstition is a grassroots queer-focused club night which focuses on Hyperpop and Deconstructed Club with a broader focus on experimental music.