LYC Museum

Banks, nr Lanercost

I wanted to go somewhere different to clear my head so after various odd jobs at home, contacting my landlord and catching up on more family stuff on the phone with my sister in the morning, I went in search of the open spaces of Border country.

A few weeks ago I had watched a documentary, ‘Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain’s Hidden Art History’, and learnt of the artist Li Yuan-chia who had lived and worked not far away and, I’d never heard of him. It has been on my mind ever since and I wanted to try and find the place which is up on Hadrian’s Wall. The place, the dereliction, his life all feel deeply moving and then there was the presence of all the rest of the past history of Hadrian’s Wall as well, the huge sky and the buzzard flying overhead. I did a walk of a few miles ending up climbing back up to the wall ridge - the final ascent from the river Irthing was exhausting and gave a real sense of the strategic advantage of its location.

There is a short piece about Li Yuan-chia here ... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b1S8lVkq3j0