WAKEFIELD.- Yorkshire Sculpture Park presents Ymedaca, an exhibition of work by British artist Hester Reeve, from 28 June to 7 September 2014, which culminates in a one-day open-air experimental academy on 30 August 2014.

Ymedaca is the result of Reeve’s two-year residency at YSP, where the artist re-mapped the Park as a contemporary translation of the very first university established by Plato in 5th century BC Greece.

For the Ymedaca academy, Reeve has collaborated with ‘Guardians’ selected from seven local groups to devise a series of events, known as ‘liberalational manoeuvres’, which run from dawn to dusk at the Park, on 30 August. Rather than working with experts or philosophers, Reeve celebrates everyday passions by working with interest groups, all of which are dedicated to activities that enrich their own lives.

Inspired by the National Arts Education Archive (NAEA), based at YSP, Ymedaca is both a conceptual sculpture and a concrete public event offering visitors a unique chance to experience creative events inspired by the Platonic questions, ‘what is a good life, indeed, what is the good?’ and ‘how can education bring joy to the soul?’.

Two displays, Ymedaca: Temple of the Muses in the NAEA and Ymedaca: The Game Plan in the Upper Space, document the artist’s concerns. The exhibition includes, a series of drawings for Reeve’s conceptual re-mapping of the estate, providing a necessary framework for the artist’s pop-up academy and signalling the radical direction that the performance takes.

The local groups involved are Cantabile choral group, Hand Tool Users United, The Magick Lounge, The Royal British Legion, West Yorkshire Astronomical Society, West Yorkshire Pagan Meet up and Yorkshire Sun Society.

Reeve’s practice encompasses live art, philosophy, drawing and photography. In her work, art is not viewed as a straightforward tool of communication, more as a complex kingdom that is continually attempting to establish itself through human thought and action. The artist has shown live works both nationally and internationally over the last 15 years and lectures in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University.