Close looking is an online discussion series that invites people to spend time with a single work from the AGO Collection - observing its details, discussing its creation, its history and the artist’s intention through multiple senses and perspectives. Connecting art, access and learning, it’s a series that clears a space for us to appreciate the role that artists play in revealing and even shaping the world in which we live.

Join Rachel Stark (Intern, Conservation) and Sjoukje van der Laan (Conservator, Contemporary Art) in their conversation about The Space of the Lama (1966) by Canadian artist Joyce Wieland. This talk focuses on Wieland’s unique creation process and choice of materials (plastics, photographs), and the interesting conservation and installation challenges that comes with it. Despite it’s relatively young age, The Space of the Lama shows material degradation and visual losses, which is typical for the degradation of plastics. Hear more about the conservation of this artwork and contemporary art conservation at the AGO!