GSA Degree Show 2026: Heads Up

GSA Highlands & Islands Summer Show

Altyre Campus, Blairs Farm Steading, Altyre Estate, Moray, IV36 2SH
5 Jun, 12-8pm
An exhibition showcasing work from the GSA Highlands and Islands campus, generating future opportunities for collaboration across the region in learning, research and knowledge exchange.

GSASA Degree Show After Party 2026: The Last Dance!

The Vic and Assembly Hall

28 May, 8pm-3am
Start the summer strong at 2026’s Degree Show After Party. On Thursday 28 May, we’ll be hosting the party of the year in The Vic & Assembly Hall. From 8pm until very late, you’ll be treated to sets by ButhotheWarrior, Corran, Junglehussi, Gamma Knife Machine, RubyD, Viv and Hill52.

Open Studio Summer Exhibition
Fleming House, 134 Renfrew Street
29 May-7 Jun 
Running as part of the Degree Show, the Open Studio Summer Exhibition features work by young people involved in the Widening Participation programme, Castlehead School of Creativity and the Glasgow Clyde College Associate Student Scheme.

Portfolio Preparation – Creative Practices Course

Courses running from June

The Portfolio Preparation course is a great way to learn about crafting a portfolio in a collaborative and welcoming studio environment. Ideal for those intending on applying to art schools, the course is structured to help you choose an area of art and design to study, and has a track record of getting students places at top art schools across the UK. Visit the Study pages on the GSA website for more information on the course and how to apply.

Postgraduate Degree Show 2026

End of summer
Just a few weeks after the Degree Show, you can explore a showcase of work from students on Postgraduate programmes across the GSA. You’ll find innovations in design and technology alongside explorations in sculpture, painting, printmaking and fashion. And just like the undergraduate Degree Show, there is an online showcase which gives you the chance to experience the show beyond exhibition spaces. Visit gsapostgradshowcase.net for more information.

Anya Paintsil – The delight of walking alone

Glasgow International 2026
Burns Street Studios, Glasgow
5-21 Jun

The delight of walking alone presents the work of Welsh and Ghanaian artist Anya Paintsil. Based in Glyn Ceiriog and London, Anya draws inspiration from her childhood in North Wales and her ancestral Fante tradition of figurative textiles. Anya combines craft practices she was taught as a young child, including rug making, appliqué and hand embroidery, with afro hairstyling techniques to create large scale portraits. Inspired by North Welsh folklore, since her own return to a small village in North Wales, this new work imagines giantesses, who delight in their freedom in the landscape, swamps and hills.

Anya Paintsil, BUTTERFLY BUDDLEIA, 2025

Afterlives: The Weaver, A Score, An Archipelago
Reid Gallery
10 Jul-8 Aug

Inspired by the Glasgow 2026 Festival theme of ‘social justice’, this group exhibition curated by Alaya Ang brings together artists whose work engages with Southeast Asian legacies of the Commonwealth. Focusing on practices that draw from archival materials and oral histories, the exhibition approaches history as partial, contested and continually reworked, and considers how contemporary artists revisit and reframe inherited narratives to uncover obscured or marginalised histories. The works aim to sensitively deal with routes to a just future through the acknowledgement of individual histories.

Commonwealth Games Medals at The Glasgow School of Art
Window on Heritage, Reid Building, GSA
10 Jul-8 Aug
Inspired by the Glasgow 2026 Festival theme of ‘celebration’, this exhibition brings the medal design process to life, featuring materials from The Glasgow School of Art Archives & Collections alongside other sources. Medals are the ultimate symbols of sporting excellence, embodying athletes' dedication and the collective pride of the communities coming together in their support. This excellence in sporting attainment is mirrored by the excellence in design, curation and creative practice taught at GSA. The Glasgow 2026 medals have been designed by award-winning artist, designer, silversmith and GSA graduate Militsa Milenkova. The exhibition will premiere a short film by BAFTA Scotland–winning filmmaker and GSA graduate Callum Rice, documenting the journey behind the 2026 medal design.

Sam Ainsley and Alex Dempster – What if it isn’t there…
Garnethill Gallery
4 Jul-8 Aug
This two-person exhibition presents shared interests in natural systems and the Earth’s structures and rhythms. Sam Ainsley (D.Litt., R.S.A.) thinks of her work as a form of “emotional and intellectual mapping” that tries to uncover correspondences and relationships between natural (biological, geographic, geological) phenomena, the human body and the human condition. For this exhibition, she will show a body of new work called ‘bed drawings’, made during a long period of recuperation after being knocked over by a vehicle. Glasgow-born Alex Dempster’s artistic practice is shaped by a lifelong fascination with nature, geology and the branching networks that appear across myriad forms in nature. From the delicate veins of leaves to the intricate patterns of river systems and geological fault lines, these interconnected structures embody the hidden order of the natural world.

Commonwealth Games Medals at The Glasgow School of Art

Josie KO & The Jardine Sisters

Reid Gallery
19 Sep–31 Oct
Glasgow-based artist Josie KO presents a commission of new work, as part of the programme for RSA200 Celebrating Together which brings together over 70 cultural partners from across Scotland and celebrating 200 years of the Royal Scottish Academy.

KO, a 2021 GSA graduate, has been invited to respond to an archive of The Jardine Sisters. Bridget ‘Jet’ Jardine (1881-1964, born Helensburgh) and Aeta Jardine (1886-1969, born Georgetown, Demerara) both studied at GSA in the early 1900s and went on to exhibit their work at the Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition between 1918 and 1929. 

The Jardine Sisters grew up between Glasgow and Georgetown, Guyana. Their lifetime work, held in a private family archive, encompasses watercolour landscapes, figurative studies, still lives and illustrations of figures from folklore and mythology such as goblins and fauns. Through their father, the Jardine Sisters were direct descendants, six generations removed, of Scipio Kennedy, the formerly enslaved African who lived at Culzean Castle in Ayrshire c.1700-1774. KO’s commission will respond to the life of Scipio Kennedy, in the format of a sculptural monument and installation. This will be exhibited with selected work by the Jardine sisters.

Open Studio Summer Courses

Courses running throughout summer

The Glasgow School of Art’s Open Studio offers a range of creative short courses for both adults and young people. Courses for Young Creatives (7-15 years old) will run in week-long blocks between 27 July and 2 August, with classes bookable in morning or afternoon groups each day of the week. Young people can learn about what they like within art while picking up some skills in a range of areas like photography, creative sculpture and ceramics, graphic design and 2D and 3D making.

This year’s summer courses for adults are ideal if you’re looking to hone a new skill or develop your practice within a specialist area. Courses include painting, wood carving, sculpture, graphic design, and jewellery.

GSA OPEN

Whether you’re just starting to consider coming to art school, or you’re almost ready to hit ‘send’ on your application, GSA OPEN offers events to support you at whatever stage you are on your application journey. Our year-long programme encompasses campus open days, online open house events, student-led campus tours, portfolio advice sessions and one-to-one sessions with staff. Find out more on the GSA website.

Sonica Festival

Race, Rights & Sovereignty

Established as a partnership between GSA’s Students’ Association (GSASA) and GSA Exhibitions, this public event series explores the relationship between race, place and creative practice. Events in the last year have included public lectures and artist-led talks, events and performances from Sequoia Danielle Barnes and Hardeep Pandhal, Sean Wai Keung and Ebun Sodipo. RRS is programmed by culture writer Eilidh Akilade. You can listen to a GSA Podcast episode about RRS on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

Sonica 

24 Sep-4 Oct
The Glasgow School of Art will be taking part in Sonica 2026, an 11-day biennial festival dedicated to world-class audiovisual art and sound. Loved for its adventurous, international programme, the event is an essential part of arts and culture within Glasgow. Visit sonic-a.co.uk for more information.