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Royal College of Art

@royalcollegeofart

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The world’s leading Art and Design University
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🚀 We’re thrilled to share we’ve been named the World’s No. 1 Art and Design University in the QS World University Rankings for the 12th consecutive year! 🚀

With an overall score of 98.5%, our rankings recognise the global impact of artists and designers from the RCA and London’s status as a world centre for creative practice.

Professor Christoph Lindner, President and Vice-Chancellor of the Royal College of Art, said:

“To be ranked the world’s top art and design university for 12 consecutive years is an extraordinary milestone. It celebrates the imagination, rigour and talent of our students, alumni and staff - a community that continually pushes the boundaries of creative practice. From London to the world, the RCA is a place where exceptional talent comes together to challenge conventions and shape what comes next.”

The UK’s strength in creative higher education directly feeds into the country’s reputation as a leader for its innovative creative industries and as a global destination for culture, and supports the UK’s creative economy, which contributed £145.8bn in GVA in 2024 and grew at four times the rate of the wider economy between 2023 and 2024.

🔗 Read more at the link in the bio.

Graphic design by Vicky Evans

#QSWUR #UniversityRankings by @royalcollegeofart

Our MA Photography teamed up with the @nationalgallery to explore their art collection through performance and photographic print 📸 🤔

Led by our Associate Lecturer in MA Photography and Artist, Dr Tom Lovelace "The Living Pictures" responds to details, fragments and abstractions drawn from paintings in The National Gallery's collection and transforms them in terms of scale and the conventions of display through photographic prints.

These prints formed the raw materials for a live performance creating kinetic connections and narrative, in which Tom was joined by Royal College of Art alumni who interacted with each other and the photographs, setting them into motion.

The Living Pictures was performed on Friday 23 October by Karen Callaghan, Arnaud Ivaldi, Flora Liu, Tom Lovelace, Sophie Myles, Lila Rui Lan, Ben McDonnell and Emma Kate Matthews. With Creative assistant: Sara Sahores.

Photos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 by @sarasahores

#Photography #Art #PerformanceArt by @royalcollegeofart

We were delighted to partner with Beyond the Box and the Festival of the Future to inspire young people to explore the possibilities of architecture and spatial practices this October!

It was incredible to see so many young people at the Royal College of Art's Battersea campus on 9 and 10 October for the festival. Where careers in design can feel out of reach, Festival of the Future is built to open them up.

Created by Beyond The Box CIC, the festival is built on collaboration. Giving young people a chance to work alongside architects, engineers, planners, and civic organisations through workshops, studio tours, and live co-design.

Not to talk to young people, but to design alongside them.

Highlights from the festival included:

🌟 Exclusive studio tours of Foster + Partners’ newly renovated main studio, with drawing workshops and a portfolio clinic for students.
🌟 ZHA (formerly Zaha Hadid Architects) leading Re:Imagine London — a city-making experience built in Fortnite, where teams reimagine a stretch of the capital’s waterfront.
🌟 Beth Hughes (Head of Programme, @rca.architecture & @rca.arch.grad.dip) joined a panel on growing future talent, chaired by RCA student Sam El-bahja.
🌟 RCA alumni from POoR Collective placing young people at the centre of design, and Chris Laing (Deaf Architecture Front) embedding DeafSpace principles into public space, and EDIT challenging spatial bias through feminist design.

#Art #Design #Architecture #FestivalOfTheFuture #CreatingEquityByDesign by @royalcollegeofart

We were joined by friends from @aardmananimations and @aardmanacademy today for an open event for the new Aardman/RCA Animation (Professional Residency) MFA starting in September 2027 🚀

The programme combines @rcaanimation’s 40 years of experience teaching, researching and making animation in London with the expertise of award-winning animation studio Aardman, and Aardman Academy, and their world-class training facility in Bristol.

🔗 Find out more about the programme at the link in the RCA bio. by @royalcollegeofart

Back in the 1970s you could find an unexpected place for inspiration at the top of our Darwin Building at RCA Kensington 🌿 🌴

The Greenhouse was originally designed with our Textiles students in mind to give them ready access to inspiration from nature. But soon became a space where students from all over the college could seek art and design inspiration.

It was run for many years by the illustrator John Norris Wood and later by the artist, Xavier Pick.

Thanks to RCA Special Collections @collectionsrca for these images. There's more inspiration from them at the link in the bio 🔗 by @royalcollegeofart

"Mis-Angel is a love story between two people who will never meet" explains Wyatt Carson @midwest_angel2001 (MA Animation, 2025)

Wyatt is an artist & animator from Lawrence, Kansas. They have just won the the inaugural @irisprize Student Short Film Award celebrating the next generation of LGBTQ+ filmmaking talent for their incredibly moving graduation film Mis-Angel. Wyatt’s goal is to tell stories that resonate with people and invoke an emotional response.

"In the film, a transgender girl explores an overlap of gender and sexual fantasy as she recalls a brief interaction with a stranger at a bus stop. The film uses a paint-on-glass animation technique as well as stop-motion puppetry and claymation."

Wyatt's approach to making embraces experimentation. Paint-on-glass has become their primary animation technique because of its fluidity and backlit glow, creating films that feel like a collection of living paintings.

#Animation #AnimatedFilm #Animator by @royalcollegeofart

Stop by @imprintartfair from this Thursday 29 to Saturday 31 October to see incredible work and events by staff and alumni of our MA Print 👀

Imprint is an art fair dedicated to print and editions bringing together leading international galleries, publishers and institutions. It takes place this year at Lawrence Hall, Greycoat St, London SW1P 2QD.

This year several of our MA Print graduates will present work at exhibitions and take part in forum events (and at one of these events they will be joined by our Head of MA Print, Professor Jo Stockham:

🔴 Tamsin Loxley (MA Print, 2025) @tamsinloxley

Tamsin is part of a forum talk at 1.45pm on Thursday 29 October with Ushaw Historic House, asking How can a place, its history and collections inspire new work? Tamsin will provide insight into her residency and response to the Ushaw Historic House site.

🔴 Rudolph Taylor (MA Print, 2025) @rudolph_prints

As the recipient of the inaugural Imprint Artist Award. Rudoloph will present a dedicated solo exhibition at Imprint 2026, and will speak at an forum event entitled What to Look for in a Print at 11.30am on Saturday 31 October. The forum event will consider how experts really look at a print. Considering how paper, watermarks, plate marks as well as signatures, editions, condition and provenance, discover the physical details that reveal how a print was made and what makes it significant.

🔴 Laura Townsend (MA Print, 2026) @lauratownsendstudio

As recipient of the Imprint x RCA Graduate Award, Laura will exhibit her work at a forum event entitled The Future of Print Practice with Professor Jo Stockham (Head of MA Print), and Laura Townsend & Jazz Grant @jazzgrantstudio (both MA Print, 2026) at 11.30am on Sunday 1 November. The event will ask where print is heading next? From new technologies and interdisciplinary making to changing ideas of originality and collaboration, the conversation will consider how contemporary practice is expanding and redefining the possibilities of print. by @royalcollegeofart

All these incredible recent graduates from the Royal College of Art and our Associate Lecturer in @rca.mediastudies @rahazmand are shortlisted for the #IngramPrize2026 👏 👏

Now in its 10th year, the Ingram Prize was established by @ingramcollectionuk to celebrate and support artists at the start of their careers. Announcing the shortlist, Jo Baring, Director of The Ingram Collection said:

“It’s incredible to celebrate the tenth edition of the Ingram Prize and see how far it’s come. This year’s shortlist shows the strength and imagination of a new generation of artists, and we’re so proud to continue supporting artistic talent at this important stage in their careers.”

An exhibiton of the shortlisted artists will take place @unit1galleryworkshop in London from to 11 November 2026.

Artists work show in order:
1. Aninda Singh (MA Ceramics & Glass, 2026)
2. Yasmin Noorbakhsh (MA Painting, 2026)
3. Arty Nicharee (MA Visual Communication, 2025)
4. Raha Farazmand (Associate Lecturer, Media Studies, School of Architecture)
5. Buthaina Bin Beyat (Graduate Diploma in Art & Design, 2023)
6. Jingyi Li (MFA Jewellery and Metal, 2023)
7. Christobel Png (MA Contemporary Art Practice, 2026)
8. Jesse Akele (MA Painting, 2023)
9. Katie Kaur (MA Painting, 2025)
10. Emily Alice Mitchell (MA Contemporary Art Practice, 2024)

#Art #Artist by @royalcollegeofart

HIDDEN is back next week from 27 to 31 October in the Hangar at RCA Battersea! This unique exhibition celebrates the creativity of technical and non-academic staff at the Royal College of Art.

Open to the public 1–8pm, Tuesday 27 to Friday 30 October, and 10am–3pm, Saturday 31 October.

This exhibition has been successfully showcasing the “hidden” talent and expertise of the RCA’s non-academic community since 2003! Demonstrating the often unseen skills, creativity, commitment and technical knowledge of the people providing the crucial backbone of support at the RCA.

Swipe through for a hint of what will be on show…

Artwork credits:

Spectral Fragments, Florence Richardson (Technical Coordinator in Making)

Klein on Klein, Madeleine Lacroix (Graduate Technical Assistant)

Dancer, Amy King (Administrator)

Hwearf, Claudia Espart Hernandez & Oscar Eaton (Digital Print Technician & Specialist Technical Instructor in Etching)

Snowflake Beaded Hat, Tess Piggott (Programme Administrator)

Just another stitch, Giovanna Del Sarto (Technical Assistant)

Buddleia, Lucy Gallwey (Student Success Administrator)

JAM, Martha Harris (Technical Instructor - Digital Arts Generalist)
Untitled, Oonagh Quinn (Administrator)

Deep Falling, Samuele Albani (Specialist Technical Instructor in Interactive Media) by @royalcollegeofart

🎤We asked our MA Animation students what they thought about their trip to @aardmananimations…

Earlier this year @rcaanimation students and tutors visited Aardman and @AardmanAcademy in Bristol to get some real experience of industry in action, participate in workshops with BAFTA winning Directors and to pitch and get feedback on their own projects from leaders in the film industry.

The students also got a chance to see the facilities available at Aardman Academy to our new Aardman RCA Animation (Professional Residency) MFA programme (first intake in September 2027). This new five term (20 month) programme is designed to develop authorial voice across any technique, medium or genre. Combining the RCA’s 40 years of experience teaching, researching and making animation in London with the expertise of award-winning animation studio Aardman, and Aardman Academy, their world-class training facility in Bristol. (Link in the RCA bio for more info on the programme 🔗)

We spoke to our amazing 2026 MA Animation graduates @naavavita, @cocosoyyo and @rune.callewaert.

#Animation #Animator #AnimationStudent by @royalcollegeofart

Four Royal College of Art graduates and our Honorary Doctor @samuelross MBE are part of a major exhibition of contemporary Black design this autumn @designmuseum.

The Nue Black Aesthetic curated by @charleneprempeh opens on 6 November and charts the work of some of the most innovative contemporary Black designers working right now including @andumasebo (MA Design Products, 2021), @saul.nash (MA Fashion, 2018), @simonebrewster_london (MA Design Products, 2007) and @biancasaunders (MA Fashion, 2017). As well as additional work contextualising 20th century design history by our legendary 1957 Textiles alumna, Althea McNish.

At the core of the exhibition will be the question: “What does it mean to be a Black designer working today?”

Across the 16 designers featured, the show will demonstrate that there is no single way to be a Black designer. And invite visitors to rethink assumptions about what Black design looks like and who gets to shape design culture.

#Design #BlackDesign #Designer by @royalcollegeofart

Anyone going to #FriezeLondon this week? 👀

The art fair returns to Regent's Park today bringing together nearly 300 galleries to showcase the best in contemporary art practice – including several graduates of the Royal College of Art. There are of course a number of exhibitions opening in galleries across London at the same time.

Image credits in order:
-Frank Bowling working on Watermelon Bight in his studio, 2020. © Frank Bowling. All rights reserved, DACS 2026
-Cece Phillips, Lacquered Landscape (2025) Courtesy of Public Gallery
-Watermelon Bight, 2020, acrylic and acrylic gel on canvas with marouflage, 297.2 x 185.4 cm. Courtesy The Frank Bowling Foundation. Photographed by Eva Herzog. © Frank Bowling Foundation. All rights reserved, DACS 2026
-Ken Nwadiogbu, Portrait of the Artist (2026)
-© Poppy Jones. Courtesy of the artist and Herald St, London & Bologna. Photo by Jack Elliot
Edwards.
-Thomas J Price,Through a Steady Gaze, 2025. Courtesy of the Artist and Hauser & Wirth Photo credit: Jon Etter
-Courtesy the artist and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London. © Shaqúelle Whyte 2026. Photo: Eva Herzog.
-Courtesy of the artist and Cob Gallery

#Frieze #Art #London by @royalcollegeofart