The next generation of global creatives takes centre stage at The Glasgow School of Art Postgraduate Degree Show 2025, presenting innovation and emerging technologies alongside traditional craft, fine art skills and socially responsive design. Running 29 August – 7 September in Glasgow, with a global digital showcase launching 28 August, the Postgraduate Degree Show 2025 is one of Scotland’s largest public exhibitions of emerging creative talent across art, design, architecture and innovation.
Postgraduate Degree Show is a highlight of the academic year, offering a unique insight into our programmes and, most importantly, the depth and quality of work produced by our postgraduate students at our Glasgow and Highlands & Islands campuses. The show will be available for both in-person viewing in Glasgow and online via our digital showcase, which launches at 5pm on Thursday, 28th August.
Postgraduate students from across the School of Fine Art, School of Design and Mackintosh School of Architecture will be exhibiting their final degree show presentations until 7 September at the Stow, Reid and Bourdon Buildings respectively.
The School of Innovation & Technology exhibition takes place on campus from 29th August – 31st August, and as part of this they are hosting a two day symposium on Friday 29th & Saturday 30th August in the Reid Lecture Theatre’s projects, inviting dialogues that move between urgent and imaginative terrains – from immersive healthcare to rural futures and digital preservation, sustainable housing, and questions of cultural access. On Saturday, 30th August, Degree Show is host to another event on campus – a film screening of compelling audio-visual works in the Assembly Hall in the GSA Students Association building on Scott Street.
Professor Penny Macbeth, Director of The Glasgow School of Art, said: “The Glasgow School of Art’s postgraduate community is at the forefront of shaping the creative economies of Glasgow, Scotland, and beyond. Our graduates bring innovation, critical thinking, and new technologies into industry while sustaining and expanding Glasgow’s reputation as a global centre of creative excellence. From design innovation and architecture to fine art, traditional craft and making, and socially responsive practice, the Postgraduate Degree Show highlights how emerging artists, designers, and architects translate their vision into work that asks important questions, delivers cultural impact, and drives economic growth – locally, nationally, and internationally.”
This year’s MLitt Fine Art Practice cohort demonstrates a diverse set of student perspectives and experiences, with continuing students from the undergraduate degree, domestic and international students, as well as students from non-traditional routes who have come through the GSA’s portfolio preparation course.
MLitt Fine Art Practice graduate Liúsaidh Ashley Watt’s work investigates the relationship between identity and place by incorporating Scottish folklore, ancient sites, and rituals. Combining films, sound works, sculpture, photography, ceramics, the written word, and scent, Liúsaidh aims to immerse audiences in her black-and-white world of duality, ritual, storytelling, and dreams. The Stone Circle, titled Grind o’ da Drømmer, acts as a gateway into Liúsaidh’s world of endless hills, dark skies, stones, and dreams. This series of five stones reflects the surreal nature of this mysterious realm, allowing the visitor to step into and experience the world Liúsaidh has created. Mengyun Zhou constructs sculptural objects and soundscapes using steel, hooks, and mechanical remnants with wood and bone— disturbing hybrid forms which question humanity’s place within technological systems. Nightmarish, skeletal objects, static yet somehow threatening, Mengyun’s work suggests both a remnant of a living creature and a shard of machinery, suspended at the threshold between the organic and the artificial.
Nancy Eadington achieved a BA in Fine Art Practice from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2011, and then over the years built a successful career as a scenic painter in film and TV production before taking up a place in MLitt Fine Art Practice at the School of Fine Art. Through printmaking, painting, and photography, Eadington’s current research focuses on sites of change in the city, such as points of infrastructure, wastelands, and post-industrial ruins. Investigating connections between the conditions of abandonment and activity that flourishes in these isolated environments, DIY skate parks, graffiti, and social gatherings. Her expressive tactile approach to mark-making creates an ambiguous position between the drawn and photographic, and the real or imaginary.
Erin Armstrong, an MSc Medical Visualisation & Human Anatomy student, is exploring the use of Mixed Reality to perform surgical overlay of interior anatomical structures (e.g. veins, arteries, area for incision) onto a patient body. In collaboration with the University of Aberdeen and Glasgow University, Erin has developed a unique MR experience which will facilitate surgical planning in flap surgery. Her research is the continuation of a longstanding research collaboration between GSA and the University of Aberdeen, which has led to several high-impact factor scientific publications.
MDes Design Innovation & Service Design student Priyanka Jain project addresses the experiences of millions of women worldwide who live with chronic gynaecological conditions, many facing delays in diagnosis, seeing multiple doctors and often feeling dismissed. A challenge which is more acute for younger women, ethnic minorities, and those facing language barriers. Priyanka’s project responds to that gap by creating ‘Bridge’, a pre-consultation tool co-designed with clinicians and women who have in-depth lived experience. ‘Bridge’ helps women prepare for GP appointments by securely recording gynaecological symptoms, emotional impact, and daily life disruption, ensuring their whole experience is heard and valued.
MDes Graphic Design/ Illustration/ Photography graduate Alice Poole’s atelier is a small publication that documents female artists, celebrating the wealth of female artistic talent in Scotland and offering a platform for them to be seen and heard. Initially a pre-GSA project to photograph women in their studio spaces initiated in 2020, Alice’s growing awareness of how underrepresented women remain in art institutions both in the UK and worldwide— they make up over 73% of the UK’s postgraduate art student population alone— inspired her to create a publication that specifically showcases the work of female artists, shining a light on artistic talent that often goes unrecognised and overlooked.
MDes Fashion & Textiles School of Design graduate Liwei Chong’s project Eco-Entwined Vitality challenges traditional values in fashion, demonstrating that overlooked materials can be revitalised utilising manual craftsmanship. This up-cycled and gender-inclusive project repurposes discarded climbing ropes, wedding bunting, and recycled cords using fringing and macramé techniques to transform waste into wearables. Though often seen as purely functional, rope holds remarkable strength, flexibility, and structural potential. By unravelling it, weaving, knotting, and knitting it, Liwei’s process embodies a circular design philosophy, crafting garments that merge sculptural form with dynamic tension and suspended decorative elements.
MArch Architectural Studies School of Architecture graduate Kate Drummond’s project “From the Ground Up” examines community-led re-greening of neglected urban areas. It critically addresses urban disinvestment—highlighting disconnection, stigma, and environmental degradation—while advocating for co-designed, incremental interventions rooted in care and long-term stewardship. By activating disinvested grey spaces and creating a small-scale urban oasis – Anderston City Garden – the project proposes aesthetically rejuvenating environments, enhancing biodiversity while bringing people and plants together to revive a dreary, neglected city environment.
The project investigates how ‘lighter-quicker-cheaper’, community-led design strategies can transform undervalued spaces into multifunctional landscapes that support both environmental renewal and social cohesion. Drawing on community responses, case study research, and on-the-ground local engagement, Kate investigates the need for strategic interventions that empower residents and reinterpret neglected areas as social and ecological common ground.
Advancements in technology and science have provided greater access to the night sky, yet humanity and the natural world are more disconnected from each other than ever. MDes Design Innovation & Interaction Design graduate Bailee Allen’s project Reclaiming the Cosmos: Fostering a Connection to the Night Sky in the Scottish Highlands and Islands explores the creation of custom star maps as a collective, regional storytelling tool to connect local Scottish communities to the cosmos. Based on visits and discussions with the residents of the Isle of Canna, Bailee collected their impressions of patterns in the night sky, or “star stories”, and built an interactive star map, explorable through the web and VR, designed to share stories, and develop resources for other communities to create their own local and unique connection to the cosmos.
MSc Serious Games & Virtual Reality graduate Elle Crawley’s project Dear Mary is the creation of a speculative 3D model of Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland, which combines a reconstruction of Mary’s likeness with an interactive 3D environment modelled on her chambers at Holyrood Palace. Elle explores how real-time dialogue systems can be used to enhance engagement and learning in museum contexts, particularly for young adult audiences in Scotland. Her research investigates historically informed AI characters specifically for museum use, guiding curators and practitioners in integrating adaptive AI interpretation that can enrich visitor experiences and encourage sustained engagement with collections.
Haowen Tan has a rich background in photography, from studies at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco to a postgraduate MDes in Photography. His MDes Graphic Design/ Illustration/ Photography graduate show 60 is a conceptual photography project that examines how movement, time, and memory shape the way we see. Rooted in his personal memories of travelling on trains with his father and grandfather while growing up in China, Haowen revisited this experience in Scotland, photographing the Glasgow–Wemyss Bay railway journey. Rather than presenting the landscape as a static view, Haowen’s project embraces the contingencies of travel—the blur of foreground fences, the reflections across the glass, the water marks and scratches left by time. These elements are not treated as flaws but as evidence of being there, translating the psychological state of departure into visual texture. In this way, 60 shifts from documenting objects to documenting the act of looking: how clarity and uncertainty coexist when we are in transit.
Xiangbo Xu’s MDes Interior Design School of Design project Rooms of Recognition addresses the long-standing spatial and social invisibility of Glasgow’s homeless population. While traditional shelters provide a place to sleep, they often fail to meet the deeper needs for dignity, belonging, and social reintegration, leaving the psychological, emotional, and cultural needs of the homeless unmet. Xiangbo proposes an interior-design-led prototype of modular micro-dwellings embedded within the city’s grey spaces. The design explores how such shelters can offer dignity, security, and a sense of belonging without reinforcing marginalisation; how inclusive spatial strategies can accommodate pet companionship while ensuring hygiene, privacy, and mental well-being; and how placing modular facilities in urban voids can positively reshape public perceptions of homelessness.
PhD Research graduate Helen Angell-Preece’s research (available on the digital showcase) utilises auto-geography as a means to understand spaces of home and belonging in Britain, through post-colonial critiques and personal lived experiences with geography. Helen proposes re-mapping and re-inhabiting existing methods, which often reinforce the inherited binary hierarchies of imperialism, between inside /outsider, belonging / strange. By exploring how bodies, materials, and spaces interact, Helen’s research aims to show that our environments are permeable, constantly changing, and interconnected. Through hands-on artistic practices, such as using sculptural installations, it challenges and unsettles fixed ideas of home, suggesting that belonging is dynamic and fluid rather than a static state, seeking to reveal the inherent complexities of our everyday spaces and relationships.
MArch Architectural Studies graduate Weijun Lin addresses Glasgow’s need for civic spaces in her Boundary-less Space project. Working on a site at Broomielaw Street alongside the River Clyde, Weijun transforms neglected edges into a cultural hub for tourists, residents, and local citizens through participatory architecture. Her adaptive reuse of historic structures with new spaces introduces public areas, including terraces, semi-open platforms, and communal halls, blurring inside-outside distinctions to foster informal encounters and co-creation. Through the use of flexible programmes like exhibitions, performances, and markets, the project adapts to cultural shifts, reclaiming the riverbank as a civic platform that enhances connection and belonging within the community.
Students on the MLitt Curatorial Practice course present the outcomes of a number of exhibitions, performances, publication launches, screenings and workshops. Deirdre McIntosh’s sooperdooperlooper explores the unexpected intersection between crochet, knitting, and electronic music, practices rooted in looped structures, drawing on the shared language of both forms and their emphasis on collective rhythm. Deirdre’s exhibition brings together fibre artists, sonic artists, and cross-disciplinary practitioners, positioning stitching and electronic music as parallel, generative, and communal languages. MLitt Curatorial Practice School of Fine Art graduate Yuxuan Dai’s exhibition seeks to magnify the overlooked fragments of everyday life through the lens of art. By re-examining the ordinary, the rhythm of repetition, the familiar details of daily life, Yuxuan aims to reawaken perception, provoke reflection, and invite resistance against the numbness of routine. In rediscovering the familiar, Yuxuan hopes to inspire a sense of liberation from the unconscious patterns that shape our days.
The digital showcase containing works from all graduating students launches at 5pm on Thursday 28 August on www.gsa.ac.uk/pgds25
For further information and images contact press@gsa.ac.uk
Postgraduate Degree Show 2025 times and venues:-
29 Aug – 7 Sept 2025:
School of Design: Reid Building
164 Renfrew St, Glasgow G3 6RQ
School of Fine Art: Stow Building
43 Shamrock St, Glasgow G4 9LD
Mackintosh School of Architecture: Bourdon Building
Scott St, Glasgow G3 6RQ
29 Aug – 31 Aug 2025:
School of Innovation and Technology: Haldane Building
30 Hill Street, Glasgow G3 6RN
Opening Times:
Weekdays 10am— 8pm
Weekends 10am—6pm
NOTES FOR EDITORS
About The Glasgow School of Art (GSA)
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) is internationally recognised as one of Europe’s leading independent university-level institutions for education and research in the visual creative disciplines. Our studio-based, specialist, practice-led teaching, learning and research draw talented individuals with a shared passion for visual culture and creative production from all over the world. Originally founded in 1845 as one of the first Government Schools of Design, the School’s history can be traced back to 1753 and the establishment of the Foulis Academy delivering a European-style art education. Today, the GSA is an international community of over 3500 students and staff across architecture, design, fine art, innovation and technology in our campuses in Glasgow and Altyre (in the Scottish Highlands) and a thriving Open Studio programme delivering non-degree provision to over 1500 students annually.
