In the Wild: GSA Graduate-initiated projects

Glasgow School of Art graduates from the last two years make an international impact with an inventive series of exhibitions and events

Article | 03 Jun 2022
  • GSA Graduate Projects

While final year GSA students were busy in their studios, graduates from the last two cohorts were out in the world, sharing their work at physical events for the first time. When ongoing lockdowns and restrictions prevented in-person Degree Shows in 2020 and 2021, the GSA committed to support future IRL graduate-led activity, which has been coming to fruition in exhibitions, screenings and events over the past year – in locations from Glasgow to Seoul.

Something of a prelude to this activity came in late 2020, when – due to local allowances – a group of GSA graduates were able to exhibit at a major FutureLab showcase in Shanghai. In the absence of Degree Shows around the world, the international art and design education platform presented an exhibition of work by Chinese graduates – including 52 from postgraduate programmes at the GSA.

From May to July 2021, as some venues began to tentatively open to visitors, a group of Fine Art graduates spearheaded the Alternative Degree Show Festival – a three month-long takeover of the city’s galleries, public spaces and civic buildings. Venues ranged from the airy main hall of the Briggait, to the open spaces of Woodlands Community Garden, with over 100 graduates from Painting and Printmaking, Fine Art Photography and Sculpture and Environmental Art showing work. After over a year without in-person exhibitions, visitors had the opportunity to come face-to-face with Josie Ko’s life-size sculptures, experience the sinister shadows of Ella Campbell’s Human Cave, and watch a durational performance by HUSS.

As well as showcasing their work, the graduates took the opportunity to reflect on a number of pertinent issues facing artists and art students today, in a series of online talks. The programme included a panel on sustainability that took in not just climate issues, but financial and creative support, and a thought-provoking discussion on the experience and mutual benefits of mature students in classes of younger peers.

As part of the Alternative Degree Show Festival, graduates programmed two evenings of film screenings at Transmission and SWG3. Post-festival, this grew into Interlude Films – a showcase of contemporary moving image works by 28 graduates, hosted by Glasgow-based firm ISO Design over three evenings in October. True to the tradition of moving image in Scotland, this was an expansive programme, spanning animation, narrative film and experimental techniques – with films ranging from a documentary on the River Kelvin, to algorithmically-generated VR.

Perhaps the most ambitious graduate-led project to date, ​​Project Wunderkammer was an international programme of six exhibitions across four months, led by 2020 graduate Aeji Seo. Featuring the work of 44 graduates across venues in Stockholm, Glasgow, London, Phuket and Seoul, the project drew upon the spirit of Fluxus – a group unified not by style, but by the youthful energy of artists. Each individual exhibition was proposed as a ‘wunderkammer’ – another name for curiosity rooms presented in Renaissance homes – presented via the esoteric interests of its curator. Through their curation, Seo, Antonio Parker-Reese, Robert McCormack and Demi Zatumatmetee explored organic materials, action, empathy and communication, drawn from gatherings of work from their fellow 2020 graduates.

In sharp contrast to the gallery presentation of Wunderkammer was Graduate Drive Thru, organised by Chao-Ying Betty Rao and Robert McCormack, held in September 2021 as part of Glasgow Open House Festival. Glasgow artists are known for taking advantage of unusual venues, and this was no exception: an open-air exhibition held on the rooftop of an NCP car park, juxtaposing sculpture and installation with breath-taking views across the city. The wit and energy of the 23 artists’ work was a perfect match for the idiosyncratic venue, from Council Baby’s blown-up graffitied train tickets (“YUPTAE” “NOWT”) to Sam Welch and Christian Alex Popa’s installation in the back of a parked van.

The latest graduate-initiated project was also the first exhibition for two years in the newly reopened Reid Gallery, the GSA’s main exhibition space on campus. Held in February and March 2022, A Remix of Damage was a group show by the Strata Collective, eight artists who graduated from the MLitt Fine Art Practice Sculpture pathway the previous year. During lockdown, the graduates continued to support each other to find innovative and imaginative ways to continue their practice, resulting in work encompassing casting, sound, textiles, ready-mades and more. In the gallery, Alex Anderson’s primary coloured paintings and Abbey Corbin’s wax shell sculptures sat beside Yena Park’s Soil Processing Table, a transplant from a sci-fi laboratory handling artificial urban debris.

The way we experience art and culture has changed, but the inherent inventiveness and adaptability of art school graduates has risen to meet these challenges – it feels natural to experience this work in such a variety of contexts. The GSA is continuing to support graduate projects both within and outwith gallery walls – perhaps by the time you read this, something new will have taken over a building, garden, or car park in your neighbourhood.