Join resident artist, Emily Ryalls for an afternoon of feminist body mapping. Through participatory performances, the artist has been researching how to connect with our past as powerful archives of knowledge, growing with us through life. Her research brings together diverse groups of women, inviting them to reimagine their body as an archive - storing memories like a sponge. This memory work asks, how we can best care, share, and preserve our bodily knowledge and what can be learnt from the process?

For this session, we will be working with large sheets of cyanotype coated fabric, thinking about the history of cyanotypes, originally used to produce blueprints - now, aiding us in mapping our bodies. As we bathe under the sunlight, laid on top of the cotton sheets, our silhouettes slowly imprint onto the fabric beneath us in a striking bright blue. Within the process, we'll be taking the opportunity to individually locate and familiarise ourselves with our feminist archives, before coming together to wash and care for our cyanotype imprints in an act of collective labour. The experience is one that is deeply personal, but powerfully connected to the collective female energy we will be surrounded by.

This is the first in a series of participating performances led by Emily Ryalls, titled Body Archives, which positions women's bodies as living, breathing archive sites to learn from. These performances have in part been developed during Ryalls’ 2025 residency with YSP and The Art House. This collaboration will culminate in the artist’s first solo exhibition at The Art House later this year.

Please be mindful when booking that this session is for women and female-identifying participants only.

Please note that this event takes place on a Monday, when YSP is closed to the public.