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The Ashmolean is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology, founded in 1683. Our world famous collections range from Egyptian mummies to contemporary art, telling human stories across cultures and across time.

Crafted over cups of tea, this installation amplifies the stories, lives and resilience of Oxford’s communities, particularly those of Oxford’s Windrush generation and African Caribbean community, many of whom have family links to the transatlantic slave trade. Local residents, students from the University of Oxford, artists, and a museum team, have imagined, invented and created ‘A Nice Cup of Tea?’.

Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang (b. 1957) is best-known for his gunpowder explosion events staged in public spaces worldwide and, in particular, for his firework display for the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. This exhibition focuses on the artist’s smaller-scale works, exploring the presence of Chinese culture in his art through the mediums of painting, drawing, and gunpowder on canvas, paper and silk. Learn about the significance behind the materials Cai Guo-Qiang chooses to work with, as well as the ways he adapts them to explore his own central themes of creation, destruction and chance.

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