Exhibitions Hub boosts support for art students

A new initiative to support public-facing exhibitions by students and alumni has been launched by the Department of Art at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The Exhibitions Hub provides expert advice as well as practical support, to help students and recent graduates from the Department of Art bring their ideas to life. 

It aims to create new networks and promotional outlets for these artistic productions, spreading the word though the Instagram account @GoldExhibitions. 

By building new relationships and long-term partnerships with galleries and organisations local to Goldsmiths’ New Cross campus and further afield, student and graduate artists will have access to new opportunities and the chance to reach and engage new audiences. 

The Hub was formally launched on Thursday 30 January at a Goldsmiths event attended by Department of Art staff, students, alumni and project partners. 

The first partnership is a project bringing together Department of Art alumni and the London Community Video Archive (based in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths).

Set up in 2017, The London Community Video Archive is a volunteer-led organisation that preserves, archives and shares community videos made in the 1970s/80s in London and the South East. The new project is a commission for alumni to develop new work in response to the themes, people and places the archive encompasses. The commission will be presented publicly in the form of an event or exhibition later this year.

Following a research and development period with the archive, the Exhibitions Hub and artist mentors Ed Webb-Ingall and Rehana Zaman will support alumni groups or individuals to develop an experimental new work, event, exhibition, screening or other project.

The Department of Art at Goldsmiths is among the top-ranked art departments in the world.

Eight winners of the Turner Prize, and around a quarter of those shortlisted are alumni or staff in the Department of Art or Department of Visual Cultures.

The Department offers a range of degrees, including BA Fine Art and Fine Art & History of Art and MFAs in Fine Art, Curating and Art Writing. Alumni include Steve McQueen, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Bridget Riley, Fiona Rae, Antony Gormley, Bob and Roberta Smith and Yinka Shonibare.

For more information, follow the Exhibitions Hub on Instagram at @GoldExhibitions 

For more information on the Department of Art, visit www.gold.ac.uk/art