exhibition
N55 WALKING HOUSE - OCTOBER Events & Talks
Danish artists N55 bring their Walking House to Wysing following an Interact, Arts Council funded, placement.
The concept of the Walking House came out of N55’s residency at Wysing in 2007, during which they researched the lifestyles and legal concerns relating to some of Cambridge’s community of people of traveler origin. N55 have taken the historic model of the 18th century Romani horse carriage and re-worked it for the 21st century. Working closely with specialists at MIT Institute of Engineering in Massachusetts they have built subsequently built a fully functioning Walking House – the house walks using adapted linear actuators. The design allows the structure to move slowly at the same pace as a human can walk, about 5km an hour in real terms.
Walking House is a modular system that allows people to live a peaceful nomadic life, moving slowly through the landscape with minimal impact on the environment. It collects energy from its surroundings using solar and wind power, it is not reliant on any road infrastructure and can move on all types of terrain.
The Walking House adapts to people rather than people having to adapt to the house, so by adding further modules human social needs and changing demands from single living occupancy changing to families can be accommodated. Walking House forms various sizes of communities – even walking villages when two or more units are added together.
Visit Wysing and see the designs, manuals and concepts for the Walking House for yourself and experience the structure as it moves through the rural landscape in and around Wysing’s 11 acre site.
Visit N55's own website for a Manual for Micro Dwellings: www.n55.dk
BIG DRAW EVENT SATURDAY 25 OCTOBER
FREE ALL AGES 12-5pm
The Big Draw is a national event that aims to get everyone drawing, and this activity is appropriate for all.
This year Wysing Arts Centre's Big Draw event will be run by artists Anne Mie Melis and Sarah Evans and focuses on drawing & animation. Come and help design a futuristic utopian environment by contributing to a giant drawing that, using simple stop-frame animation techniques, will move!
The resulting animation will be shown in the exhibition and on our Wysing blog. Come along and take part.
This activity is particularly suited to older children (8yrs up), teenagers and adults but there will be something for all the family to do on the day.
URBAN ORIGAMI
Artist Simon Woolham has worked with three of Cambridgeshire’s Arts Venues, Kettles Yard, Ruskin Gallery and Wysing, to create a participatory activity for the Big Draw.
Urban Origami encourages you to transform paper into small sculptures that can find new homes in any environment, record these mini interventions and upload the results to a growing BLOG site. http://www.urbanorigami.blogspot.com/
Urban Origami will be available at Wysing Arts Centre throughout the N55 exhibition and will be our Art Trolley activity for October
HALF TERM EVENTS FOR THE BIG DRAW - WORKSHOPS
Wednesday 29 October 2-4pm (£2 per child)
Simon Woolham will lead a session creating Urban Origami interventions, He will guide you on a path of drawing discovery around our 11 acre site creating paper interventions, recording through photography and uploading the results to the growing web archive.
Thursday 30 October 2-4pm (£2 per child)
Sarah Evans will lead a drawing session appropriate to all ages inspired by the walking house and futuristic environments. Experiment with a wide range of drawing materials and techniques to create your own work. This is a community drawing activity and is aimed at all ages, come along and have a go.
This project is part of the 2008 Big Draw – the National Campaign for Drawing. www.campaignfordrawing.org
We are also part of the Cambridge University Festival of Ideas. www.cambridgefestivalofideas.org
Admission is FREE and there are self-service refreshments in our reception building. Come along and take part.
Visit N55 on You Tube and see the Walking House take its first steps : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CvxIB83Y0PA
Daily Telegraph Scientific Correspondent :
The Walking House will remain on site until 23 December when we close for Christmas.
N55 : WALKING HOUSE
24 OCTOBER - 30 NOVEMBER
Open 12-5pm daily
1 DECEMBER - 23 DECEMBER
Open 12-5pm Mon-Fri ONLY
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