Pearl Lam (林明珠): Hello, this is Pearl Lam Podcast. I’m here in London. I’m sitting here with Katie Wick. Sorry Katie, I cannot pronounce your long surname name, but Katie, can you tell the audience what you have been doing and who you are?
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yes, so. I’m Katie Wickremsinghe. Don’t worry, everyone shortens it to Wick. I’m an art world expert and the founder of the The Wick and KTW, which is a global consultancy and content platform, and we’re on a mission to connect to the culturally curious and breakdown some of the boundaries that exist in the art world.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Tell us more about The Wick and about what what exactly you’re doing, because when you say cultural curious, what does, what does that mean?
Katy Wickremsinghe: Well, I think having worked in the art world and the creative industry space for near on two decades, I realise having worked in the art world specifically that there was a real sort of opacity. And people really wanted to understand more about visual arts and culture. They wanted to spend more time in galleries and museums and understand more about the stories behind great artists or emerging artists and talent. Or Whym cultural leaders were so relevant and more about the educational process of art, but they weren’t quite sure how toa ccess it because as we all know if you weren’t born to an art family or you maybe didn’t study art history at school or didn’t come from the privilege of having access to it. It can be hard to know how to reach it. And so I found over a period of time, lots of people were coming to me as a result of the work that we were doing and they’d say, can you tell us you know where we should go and can you talk to us about some of the stories of the people that you’ve been working with recently. So it started originally as kind of an Instagram kind of journey, which then grew into wanting to create a website and over time we launched in 2021, the Wick has become…
Pearl Lam (林明珠): 2021 during COVID times, Oh my god!
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Very brave to launch a business during COVID time.
Katy Wickremsinghe: It was and it was sort of so it was kind of almost an addition to our current business. So the marketing consultancy, but we built the entire platform sort of an online website, YouTube channel and social, social media channel, which we launched in lockdown and and the channel now is really around highlighting established and emerging artists and as I mentioned, really being able to open up the doors of this thing we call the art world, because our real belief is that the art world and your world should exist so our kind of motto on the Wick is life through the lens of arts and culture. So we really try and look at where we’re finding art in our everyday lives where we’re finding art in our businesses, but also acting as a little bit of a guide and a navigator because it’s such a complicated and really amazingly, over time it started to build more traction. We’ve started to get more profile because we are championing a lot of female leaders, we’re also committed to building more traction for diverse voices and underrepresented voices in culture, so we tend to really look at that area as well. And that’s been a really exciting journey.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So are you saying that this platform you are actually showing and introducing to the art world from collectors to artists to curators to all that
Katy Wickremsinghe: Exactly. So the real full sort of gamut of the art world, the full 360 so. We’ve had interviews with museum leaders, whether that be Bettina Couric from the Serpentine or Rebecca Salter. We’ve had digital and AI experts like Suhair Kha who you’ve had on your podcast, we’ve had people like Charlotte. And Philip Colbert? Fantastic sort of artists working in hybrid between the physical world and the digital world. We’ve worked to also champion great institutional leaders like the CEO’s of BAFTA, film industry and also the fashion industry. So also we want to look at where art, stitches and other parts of our lives, whether that be through leadership or whether it be through creativity. So we actually have a highlight interview each week which is called Monday Muse, which is women who impart cultural impact and legacy with their work. But then we’ll also have we have a section called the Wick List which is our highlights of viewings and doings which anyone can go and access in the capital and beyond. And what we try and do is really strike this delicate balance between culture, the art world and the art market. Because they’re all quite different things and so if we can find a way to find a place where they comfortably exist, which is online and three films at the moment and telling these great stories and being able to give other people. The platform to tell their stories.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): What gives you this this vision to start The Wick especially starting, I mean started during COVID time. You are courageous. I have to give that to you because this is this is pretty, you know, you must have an overall vision to build up a website to build up that can be how many people is working for you.
Katy Wickremsinghe: So I have a small team actually we’re under 10 people, but we obviously I had to reformat the team in lockdown. So I had an agency format pre lockdown and then during when.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You say agency format, what do you mean?
Katy Wickremsinghe: So I had a larger full time team, which was nine people, but of those there were a few people who were mothers and so of course when lockdown hit, I had a number of people who moved out of London and also a number of people who for completely understandable reasons needed to take a step out of work because they were home schooling or they were spending time at home. So then I took the team right down to base camp and then I rebuilt the team back up. But it was, you know, it was definitely high pressure because we had to, we were working to actually build. I was drawing out the, the wireframes for the site, I was working sort of with my consultant team purely to build out what the site would look like to build out what collaborations would look like and also to build we do a lot of video. First content because a big part of the art world. Which I’m passionate about is really giving faces and video content an opportunity allow people to tell their own stories. And there’s nothing more compelling than when you get the energy of someone physically and you’re having a conversation. And for me, having had a background in entertainment and film and global brands and in the arts, it was really how could I take that experience and combine? But more importantly, I was having people constantly saying to me, could you share, you know, your information with us or the journey and how can we do it? It so it was really about how can we make a scalable offering where we’re able to take this very closed access piece that we have the privilege of working with in the consultancy side with the fantastic clients that we’ve worked with over the years the collectors that we’ve worked with. And over time in our sort of the marketing side of our business we’d also built up a database of not only some of the best collectors in the world who loved coming to our experiences. But also brilliant, well known artists who were looking to have different types of conversations, who wanted to expose their work in different ways. And also with gallerists and museum directors who were seeing this quite extreme shift in the world, where we were moving more towards new technologies and new experiences. And how could they get their stories and their works out there, but without eroding the richness and the meaning and the credibility and the resonance of what they already do?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But to do such a complicated website and also there are so many different façade on that, you must be, you must have this behind your brain and slowly, you know, putting it in in scale. It just can’t be just just, you must have thought about it at least two or three years before. How did it all happen before you were working in PR right? And it’s about your development of your career and how you and how you actually formulate this this.
Katy Wickremsinghe: So I think for me, my background was PR and public relations, and I worked for a fantastic individual who’s also very passionate about art called Matthew Freud. And I grew up in that business for a good nearly eleven years, so my entire 20s were working at the heart of working very much in politics, in consumer brand. Also with art world I worked wit Pace Gallery and Molly Dent, Brocklehurst and Mark to launch Pace Gallery as part of the Royal. Academy building. I was working with Azerbaijan to work on the cultural proposition of Baku. Also Soho House Group and Nick Jones for 10 years, which we know was the kind of the original creative hub and space with Andre to launch Chilton and the Olympics Eurostar. So really this juxtaposition of fantastic access to clients and talent but also to brands that we’re really looking at how we should be marketing and telling stories differently. So this idea of. Working with powerful businesses, interesting individuals and culturally passionate individuals had always been a part of my world and I think in terms of the idea of around PR people often say to me now sort of “What are you? “What would you say you? As humans, we’re constantly growing and I think in our career we’re always doing the same thing, so I wouldn’t say I was built from a PR background, which is almost the the bones of my body, but around that kind of the skin and the muscles and everything else are linked to strategy and publishing and reputation management and PR.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Is PR about strategy.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah. Exactly. And I think publishing as well. You know, how can we take an idea and multiply? But still keeping that idea as rich as possible. And I think in arts and culture, we’re we’re looking at doing two things. We’re looking at how can we take something that is so uniquely individual and such a human experience that’s transposed into a work, whether it be a painting or a sculpture or a piece of performance art. But how do we make that piece of art as relevant and as meaningful and as understandable as we can to as many people, as much of the time and as many places as we can. So that kind of technique of publishing and digital technologies and futurism and looking at the future of how we communicate, I think really is what spurs me on then in terms of creating the Wick and now in terms of how we’re building the Wick. So I’m really fascinated, really. At the heart of philosophy psychology and how humans connect and how we tell our stories. Because I think artist are the most vulnerable in able to being able to do that, and I say vulnerable on the flip side, powerfully, powerfully able to be very eloquent in their own journey and their own story and how they want to share it with the world, and it’s an incredibly brave thing to do. So I feel really lucky. And privileged that they often trust us and me and my team. Whether it be someone who’s in a very privileged leadership position or an artist creating something that they’ll share that information with us.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Interesting, because you know, in a peer you’re not thinking not about building community. And then you form, you build a new formula. But that formula is not just building community. You are answering people’s questions. You are, you are. You are actually in a way, Yeah, part of, but you’re advising, you’re giving advisory work. Yeah, work. So this whole process of that was in your mind and you formulated in what, within 2-3 years?
Katy Wickremsinghe: Now I think the process of sort of becoming an art market sort of expert, which is I suppose what’s happened over time started from scratch really. I self-taught. I went through lots of personal changes when I when I left Freud’s I was going through personal change where I was going to get married and I didn’t. I went through changes in terms of my professional career. Where obviously I was a director in a very big company of 260 people by the time I left.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah, it was large. When I started there was 30. When I left 260 wow. And so, you know, I had very large scale exposure. In a really unique position and I suddenly went to being myself on a lap and.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You wanted to leave.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yes, I chose to leave.
Katy Wickremsinghe: I think I chose to sort of have another stage of career because I had always really been fascinated by the arts and I’d studied history academically, and I was originally planning to go to Cambridge to study teaching and how we could teach history, how we could make it more exciting as an academic discipline and how we could get more people to find history more relevant. But when I was growing up, my mother, who is British, my father’s Sri Lankan was also loved art so I’d always been interested in arts and I’ve always been passionate about other artistic disciplines. Creative Culture as a whole, colour, meaning how we write and tell stories and put these two things together. So I think the. The art piece. Was something I wanted.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because it takes a lot of courage after being very comfortable.
Katy Wickremsinghe: I was comfortable, yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Comfortable and and and you grew within that position and you get promotion and all. It takes a lot of balls to leave.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah, it was it.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It was a very secure position, so so what gives you that push?
Katy Wickremsinghe: And I’m really tenacious. And I think, as you say, I think I have sort of, I’m, I’ve grown to be quite resilient and I think, yeah. I do feel that I we have roles that were put. Here for in this lifetime, for this moment in time. And I think for me, I feel like my role possibly is not just to connect people but also to help translate things to people in different ways, whether it be different industries. Whether it be different cultures, whether it be different opportunities for different people and I’ve always been really passionate about being often I found myself in very privileged places or places which are very closed. Whether it be in business or art at a certain level and space. And for me, I think it’s about how can I open up that space? How can we include more people in that space? So community and connection, I think was not something learned I think that was something that has always been with me from school. And I think those questions that I asked, they’re still the questions I’m asking at the Wick, I’m just asking them to different types of people.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): The art world is evolving and changing and technology digital has come is, is playing more and more into the role of of emerging art market. Yeah. So how are you going and how are you seeing it? Because I mean, you have NFT in one side and the mainstream art collectors, so the art will discriminate about the NFT. Of course, the cryptocurrency guys, they want to choose their own artists and the digital art is very difficult for the mainstream art collectors to, to collect. Even you know, even myself, I, you know, I, I saw, I bought a lot of kinetic digital art 15-20 years ago, 20 years ago, 18, 20 years ago. For a long time it was in my house, in my at my home, on and on the wall. Every year you have to upgrade the programme. Yeah. And the maintenance at the end. I think around 10 years ago I took everything down, really. Yeah, it’s much easier. I mean the maintaining. I don’t need and.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Have you managed to keep you’ve got your wallet with everything still in it?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Oh no, I’m not talking about NFTS.
Katy Wickremsinghe: NFTS you were more digital.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, I’m talking about physical digital art. Yeah, art. It’s painful. Yeah. I mean, it’s still, it’s in storage, but if you don’t preserve it, that’s how everything inside is gone so completely. I don’t for me is I’m still thinking the new world, you know, we talk about contemporary art. Contemporary art is about, I mean, our contemporary world is surrounded by technology. How could how could this take out in technology be the next round of artwork where everyone will be collecting?
Katy Wickremsinghe: And are you finding your collectors are becoming more interested in digital art or less…
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Not at all. Yeah, I’m seeing myself as the collector. Then what am I going to do? And it’s very difficult. I have a very good artist Pseudo Wwine or and and and now they call themselves Amerikwami. They’re in all the museum shows shows. I represent them since since they graduate from from RCA, you know, then I mean they do not create works that is salable. I just saw them in Tokyo. They said, Pearl, this year our newest direction is going to make work, which is salable, yeah.
Katy Wickremsinghe: So. And it’s also because in Asia, it’s really, I would have thought it would because further ahead, yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): We’re talking about these work as an experience. Yeah. Experience is is for institution, Yes. oit’s not for a home. So how do you see this?
Katy Wickremsinghe: And I think it’s ever evolved thing, isn’t it? I mean, we often talk about. Old art collectors and collectibility and art collectors, the same as digital or NFT collectors. I think in reality, as you’ve just mentioned, it’s a very small crossover.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s very small, even the NFT I mean we have launched how many NFT and we have launched 3 NFT and then we decided after that we said no. We work with a platform who knows how to do the marketing. It’s all about marketing. And actually, I mean people before the cryptocurrency is, I mean the crypto market has gone down before. They see NFT as an investment tools. It’s not as somewhat like like a collection. So we went down and now and now it’s coming back again. So NFT is very different from what we said artworks, the traditional artworks, because traditional artworks you still have museums, you still have art evaluation, you still have creator looking at it to tell you whether it’s good or bad. Yeah, NFT is purely.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah, I think also like you say the role of the curator in the physical art world is so important and there’s a real academic, you know, role of curator is to care, to care for…
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Curators, academics becomes a very important part in this traditional art world, but in NFT does nothing like that. Yeah. So would the NFT survive? Comments please.
Katy Wickremsinghe: I mean. Well, you’re probably, I’m sure Suhair probably had some very interesting opinions on this. My view is that digital art and NFT art is going to increase in importance but not because the world will change it’s because the people who are collecting will change and I think the news.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, the younger people will be growing. I mean will be growing. Of course. One day they they they may be even the trustees of some major museums.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Exactly. You know, I think also they are, you know, the younger audiences, you know, they don’t want to go to dinner parties and talk about what they’ve acquired or what they’re wearing or their handbags they want to talk about I’m part of a community and they want to work in the conversation of cultural capital and I really think that this idea of Cultural Capital, you know, not just for businesses hat we talked about you.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You need to explain to the audience about cultural capital because many of them is not from the art world.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah, of course
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So please explain.
Katy Wickremsinghe: So cultural capital I we see or we talk about in our business as being the value that culture brings to an individual, to a business and to the ability. To be to value. And that value is two way. It’s not just ideological, it’s also economical. So if you look at. Again, a big reason I started the Wick was because you know the creative industries is worth 126 billion to the UK alone and over 30 of that is purely in the visual arts space and so there is a huge need for businesses and organisations to understand why art is important and not least because art has a physical effect. Which is now, I think. I don’t know if you’ve seen, but in the last week there was a big DCMS report, which was commissioned by the government to talk about the effects of art on our health. The transformative, powerful effects of art and health and one of the big things that’s been found by the World Health Organisation community jameel and UCL is that when we go to museums and galleries in whatever type of art, when we’re looking at art more? Regularly we, we reduce effects of dementia. We increase our cognitive function. We also. We find that we actually have an interpersonal relationship. Which is richer. And the overall effect of seeing art is actually akin to moderate exercise. But if we take that back, the idea of cultural capital into the art world. It means that people want to really invest in art in a different way. Not to invest to make money and sell things on, but to really invest in the artist and how things are being created. And I think the reason that digital art will continue is because we’re moving towards an economy where we want to take culture outside of galleries and museums, as you just mentioned into our homes and larger spaces. I do think our homes will follow. I think it will take another few years, but within the next decade, I think there’ll be a lot of immersive art within homes. But we’re seeing it happen with places like Circa Art in Piccadilly Circus, which is shown large scale works. We’re seeing it with they’ve just done Marina Abramovic, they’ve worked with fantastic artists like Bowling Studio, but we’re also in places like Altonet where we’ve worked with artists like Krista Kim and Taex, which is a digital art platform and what we’re finding as people are really interested in digital, but they’re just having challenges, as you say, about the application of it. So I think there’s a big job of work to be done, which I think platforms are starting to do. But the irony is the digital platforms are needing to do physical events to educate more about how we can actually have a symbiotic relationship where on our walls we have our own art and our own paintings. And maybe Sculpture, but we’re also we might have a screen with a Rafiq, you know, a Rafiq Anadal work. I mean, even this week it’s the World Economic Forum at Davos. And Rafiq Anadal is showing really large-scale immersive works all around climate change. So he’s using immersive artistic technologies to create like a really big cultural story around capital of of our countries, around the world, around humanity. So, I think it will continue, but also we’re thinking.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I think digital art will always continue because we talk about contemporary art. Yeah, contemporary. As I said, technology is our contemporary culture. It won’t change totally. I mean, it defines us.
Katy Wickremsinghe: I completely agree. I was just going to say that I think also as we become more into our screens, more into our iPads and new technologies, we will start to form two different worlds. We’ll have our digital world where we’re visiting museums and art world places and spaces. But then we also will take our headsets off and be in a physical reality and I think.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But the problem is, the problem I look at the digital art is not about the concept of it. It’s about the practical thing. Because I mean, technology is always evolving. So when you evolve that digital art may be completely, you don’t have the right software, you don’t have that. What are you going to do then? So it is these practical thing because I had those, those kinetic digital and it’s just nightmare because you always need to upgrade. So, I think it’s that practical thing that it needs to be resolved.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Well, I think what I’m seeing is that people are starting to want to show art more digitally, so they are exploring it more of like screens in their living rooms or also because in the absence of space it’s. A great way to show great art which you can rotate and change and you don’t have to.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Condition can change into a screen of paintings, right?
Katy Wickremsinghe: Exactly. Yes, you have Elm green and drag set or whoever on your screen and I work actually with a collector who very kindly hosted a Taex Event for us and she she has wonderful digital art alongside physical art and. The movement and the energy that the digital art brings with it. But I think we are still to see these immersive experiences growing like Super Blue and other similar ones. But I also think the art world as an industry is slightly behind other industries. Whereas if we look at fashion and other creative industries, they’re doing a little bit more in that space and they’re further ahead. So we’re seeing in the art world, when we say technologies or new technologies, I think it’s more actually in how the industry is changing and artists are starting to adopt it and how they create artwork. But it’s more about how we’re sharing art world stories. And that’s where I’m seeing the biggest shift. It’s almost a bigger shift not in the adoption of the actual artistic practise. But in how the art world is telling stories, so we’re seeing, you know, people and you mentioned Echo Ishan, who so you know, tours with Echo being, you know, digital tours online, we did a tour with him of his, you know, MPG show and talking about his actual works. And being able to bring curators voices to life and scale them, I think it will be almost more quickly we’ll start to see AI curators or those types of things happening.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): AI curators definitely it will happen.
Katy Wickremsinghe: 100%.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Katie, how do you see the Wick would evolve in five years, 10 years time? What is your dream?
Katy Wickremsinghe: I think my dream is that we’re working with the best artist to tell their stories. That we’ve been able to platform new and diverse artists and that we’ve really built a really rich community. We have tens of thousands as part of our community at the moment. I’d like to see that community grow to millions. With a big focus on international development, particularly in Asia because I’m half Sri Lankan and I think the South Asian space really needs championing in this part of the world. And there’s lots of work to be done there. And I think really excitingly, we want to build and develop our experiences and unparalleled connections and meaningful experiences, unrepeated experiences for our for our collectors within our network. So we’ll be launching some initiatives around that and also physical experiences do.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You do buy and sell at your website.
Katy Wickremsinghe: So we will be launching yeah, we have shopping pages called objects of desire, yeah. So objects of desire is really all the things that I wish I had in my home, which is where we’re actually about to launch through affiliate links and some joint products. So we’ll be looking to work with artists on specific products, working with meaningful experience, club experiences and also working with more of our community to be able to give them the platform over to tell their stories as well.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So and so are you expecting or planning to have the Wick to go to America, to have these different branches all over, all over the world, to make it a global way to be?
Katy Wickremsingh: Yet to be confirmed. I mean, obviously our focus has been on London to start with, but I think yes, in terms of other major cities, I think we would start for me, I think the integration of art in our cities and the importance of art in our cities, not just as an art form, but for mental health, for bringing together communities and for also particularly in the absence of often familial communities. And also we’re in a place in in the world where everything’s quite fractured. I think people are looking for guidance and if we can help them find that from within the arts and also empowering people into different types of job roles. And I think that comes from being able to show them different pathways in the art world, different types of jobs. I’m sure you’ll have seen. There’s also fantastic additional platforms and teaching platforms, people like Mark Spiegler, who’s just launched with the Art Business Conference. I was with him in Zurich last week. And I’m really excited about the things he’s doing there.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): He’s only he’s on board of Super Blue as well.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Exactly. He’s doing great things in technology and we talk a lot about this integration of our adjacency and different types of industries. And I think the other thing that I’m really excited about is through our consultancy business is working with more global businesses to bring them on board. We’ve worked with places like Fortnum and Masons, where we worked on integrating Zang and Lee, the artist. Yeah, yeah, he’s so amazing, she said you’re a nice guy and we worked to put his works into the store with the the CEO. Then who was you Inventors who’s now recently, most recently left Hauser, but then also yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because he’s a house, an artist.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Exactly. And then we also are working with Richmond Group with Vashon Constantine. We’ve just put together as I mentioned, Conrad Shawcross’s installation there. We have new artist editions coming. So, if we can help to bring more global businesses into the world of arts and culture and having a really. We talk about art responsibility, and by that I think it means working with artists have market relevance who have integrity, who have great artistic practise. And I hope that the Wick can be a really meaningful bridge between a lot of those relationships as well. But I think if we can, yeah, if we can champion individuals, then the more the better and build the community further than that. Would be success for us.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Tell me about your involvement with museums and institutions.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah. So obviously the, the business I run is a private business and we work on the Wick side to share art world information as a free resource and also with the consultancy. But in terms of giving back to the arts, it’s really important that I spend a lot of my time obviously to help institutions and organisations that rely on public funding or rely on membership and donors to give money to, to keep them effectively running and creating fantastic exhibitions and institutional survey exhibitions. So I’m really. Lucky to be a trustee for the Royal Academy for Yorkshire Sculpture Park and for Dulwich Picture Gallery and all three of them are really important to me in different ways. Dulwich Village is where I grew up, my family home is down the road from Dulwich Picture Gallery. And so I went there as a toddler and I would go literally waddle in the front door, not really know obviously what was going on and my mum would take me. And so to be going there now and actually working to brainstorm ideas with Jennifer Scott, who’s incredibly vibrant director there and working on their new projects around sculpture. They’ve got a Rachel Jones show coming up and they’re working on incredibly exciting, innovative methods as the oldest purpose built gallery to bring in new, diverse artists. I think. I think all museums and institutions you know, the Royal Academy is fantastic to have Rebecca Salter, who’s its firs female president in over 250 years. And they also have obviously their summer exhibition, which they do annually. It’s the longest running public exhibition where anyone can go and visit. And all the work is mixed between fantastic RA artists and the fact that it’s run by academicians. And you have, you know, whether it’s Yenkash on Ibari or Isaac Julian, Cornelia Parker, I think to be working with an institution that is run by artists for artists is really meaningful. And then Yorkshire, I think, you know, to go back to what you mentioned about digital and physical, for me, through my career I’ve had a privilege to work with fantastic sculptors all the way through. And my first ever project actually was working with the Lynn Chadwick Estate. And so I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the study of sculpture. One of my best friends, Nick Hornby, who’s a sculptor and worked a lot with Ben Brown’s. But through all of this time, for me that had the haptic experience of sculpture is something that’s really stuck with me. And places like Pangolin I’ve done talks with. But I think seeing the journey of a sculpture from idea into them being in this incredible park. It’s the largest in Europe of its type. And Claire Lilly who runs it is so innovative. And anyway, I would say to anyone as well, there’s a big myth about Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where everyone says, oh, it’s so far away.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It is far away and when I.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Promise you. Pearl, we’re going to go. When you it’s two hours or two hours on the train.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I went there in the car, it was at 4 hours.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Oh no, train 2 hours to Wakefield.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, I was there years ago.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Brilliant. And there’s an amazing Bartiker exhibition on there at the moment, so I definitely try and go and see that. Yeah, for.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Sure, but is. But I have to say, the space is wonderful. It’s beautiful in that space.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah, and the international nature of what they show and who they show. And you know, it’s, it’s some of the only places, some of the best Barbara Hepworth sculptures as well.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes, it is. They have really great Barbara Hepworth sculpture and years ago before Barbara Hepworth I had what’s market becomes hot. They already have huge peeps and as a very prominent.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Exactly, Yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And so beside Dulwich you are also Royal Academy and also Yorkshire Sculpture Park Park and also you’re doing your your business. How time time wise do you put on each of the?
Katy Wickremsinghe: So I.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But all this is your passion.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Right, Yeah, I mean, I everyone talks about work life balance. I don’t really think if you’re passionate, yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Passion. You don’t have that. Yeah, Yeah. So.
Katy Wickremsinghe: You don’t worry about the balance if you’re doing what you love doing. So when people say, oh, you know, are you, is this work or not work? Do you have a work phone and a personal phone? I say, well, it’s all for me. It’s I’m really lucky that it’s all often one thing you know I’m having you know I will have dinner with a curator where I see Echo. And I will go to an exhibition with him. Is that work? Is it not work? You know, often I think it’s a real privilege to be able to spend time with artists and creatives. So I don’t yeah, I don’t see it in in that sense. But it definitely I’m on quite a lot of the time. And I think it’s also, you know, a myth that you can contain time into these very neat pockets like. Ultimately, to build anything, it’s. Really hard work. And you have to be consistent and keep going. And every time things go wrong, which by the way, they often do, it’s not the stuff you. See. Don’t always see those bits on Instagram, but you know, there are things that go really wrong. There’s something that you think is going to work and doesn’t, or a project that doesn’t come off in the right. Quite the way that. You wanted it to, but I think me and. The people that I work with, we all really. Try and but you know, try and do to our best of our ability and keep pushing things forward as much as we can.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So tell me you know your connection with London.
Katy Wickremsinghe: So I was born in London and so I very much see myself as a Londoner.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So your father met your mother here.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Exactly. Yeah. So my father’s Sri Lankan, my mother’s British, they both ,et in the medical sector so my dad was a surgeon and my mum was a nurse so.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): All of them are from the medical field and you are not.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Exactly both of them, me and my brother went off peace but my British and Sri Lankan family are all in the medical sector, but it’s also why I’m really committed to looking at the transformative power of art in medicine because it’s something I was grown up around all of the time.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Art Therapy, right?
Katy Wickremsinghe: Art therapy. Social. Prescriptioning and all of these different elements. So I’m really trying to build up some new white paper evidence around that as well. But yeah, in terms of London, I think. What’s so exciting about London is that it’s such a rich community and I think wherever you’re from, there are different types of conversations to be had and also there’s different types of galleries and institutions that can suit any tastes or faiths, all different types of international interest. And so having such multicultural communities and growing up in an educational system where we were going to galleries and the Tate and the actually as part of our school trips means that they feel part of the fabric of my life because I really believe that we’re. Basically when we see, see things culturally, it’s like a blotting paper and we subconsciously pick things up as we go along. But I think also, you know, there’s, I think it’s like 800 galleries or something and you know, in, in London alone. And so there’s incredible access to art, which I think is unparalleled internationally and we have brilliant art schools. There’s over like 40 art schools which have excellent credentials and I’m often looking at art schools as well for our new up and coming talent and how we can there’s a fan like a great guy called Shaq White who’s a young Black artist who I spent a lot. Of time with and he is doing really well so I’m constantly looking at at different ways of sourcing the new interesting voices and talent.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): That’s great. OK, so last of the question, let’s talk about spirituality. What is your, you know, if one part of your of your parents is Asian, obviously you have a very, very connected to spirituality.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Yeah, my dad’s Buddhist and my mom’s Christian, and I was never Christened, so they always just said to me and my brother, you take your own path and decide. How you do?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You believe in Buddhism?
Katy Wickremsinghe:. I would say I follow a more. Buddhist way of life.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Buddhism is a philosophy. I’m a Buddhist but when I chant I chant Buddhist mantra as well as because I went to a Catholic school so I also pray. So I do both.
Katy Wickremsinghe: They’re the same. Exactly. Yeah, I do. Both. I I definitely have elements of both in my life, but I think the idea of this idea of life being cyclical and that we need to have a self-awareness of how we are and how that impacts other people, I think is definitely quite a governing.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Empathy. Empathy.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Completely and the.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Compassion and empathy.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Completely, I think empathy and I think also really importantly, I think being present and I think I noticed that with the relationships that we build as a business but also within the team. And so we really try or I really try to be present with whoever, whoever I’m in a conversation with. Whatever level, whatever type of business conversation is really to be present in the moment and also for all of the experiences that we’re having to show elements of gratitude. And I think if we can keep elements of kind of presence and self-awareness, then usually we respond in a much more empathetic and kind way ultimately.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Wow, I love it. I want to thank Katie for spending time with me today and I hope this podcast will be very enlightening for everybody. Thank you, Katie.
Katy Wickremsinghe: Thank you so much for having me.
