The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) has partnered with Arthouse Glasgow, a new hotel opening on 24th June, to establish the Arthouse Award. The award is structured around a £6,000 bursary and the production of a public commission on site at the hotel, committed to in advance and renewed every year. The inaugural recipient has now been selected, with the installation going live on 5th June 2026, timed to coincide with the hotel’s opening and Glasgow International, Scotland’s biennial festival of contemporary art (5th-21st June) and the GSA’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Show at Stow Building, running 13th-21st June.
This year’s winning slot has been awarded to Kate Glenn, currently a student of the GSA’s prestigious MFA programme, whose work will be visible across the Arthouse facade during Glasgow International before moving into a permanent commission within the building. The Award is structured around what an emerging practice genuinely needs at this stage of its development, rather than around what a hotel typically asks of an artist. It is the first edition of an annual prize, set to recur every year from this June onwards.
The 2026 commission comprises two new works. The first, RADICAL / REBIRTH, is a temporary facade installation in hand-painted fabric across the windows of floors one to three, taking its language from the two historical plaques mounted on 129 Bath Street. The work is sited to be visible across Glasgow during Glasgow International, and it returns the building’s own story to the city before the hotel opens its doors.
A second, permanent work follows inside. PEACE / PLACE uses a single flickering letter to move between two words, intended as a proposition rather than a statement. Set in the space where you enter the building each time, it grounds the hotel’s ambition to function as a civic space.
Kate Glenn is a queer, feminist, interdisciplinary artist who explores vulnerability through emotional and physical processing. Her work draws upon feminist histories of disruption, intimacy and representation. Voice and visibility are central to her thinking… what it means to be seen or heard today. In this new commission her hope is to amplify a feminist resistance to collective decay and despair by marking the space as one built for creative and social connection and restoration. The word REBIRTH is central to this approach – it stems from the body and connects to histories of struggle and survival.
Kate Glenn, (MFA, 2026) , inaugural winner of The Arthouse Prize:
“I am grateful to The Arthouse for the opportunity to create my first public artwork. In this new commission my hope is to amplify a feminist resistance, marking a space for creative and social connection. The word REBIRTH is central to this approach – it stems from the body and connects to histories of struggle and survival. The financial support offered by the Prize has been invaluable at a time when grants and bursaries for artists are limited. I believe that my work RADICAL / REBIRTH is a hopeful gesture that a new and better future can emerge”
Margaret Salmon, Programme Leader MFA at The Glasgow School of Art:
“This prize marks a wonderful investment and commitment by Oberland to support sophisticated, dynamic contemporary art emerging from the MFA programme at The Glasgow School of Art. MFA students, staff and myself are grateful for this opportunity to collaborate and look forward to seeing Kate’s commission integrated and celebrated within the city.”
Sarah Smith, Head of Development at The Glasgow School of Art:
“Emerging artists play a crucial role in Glasgow’s cultural life. Working with The Arthouse has offered Kate vital financial support at a critical stage in her career. We are excited to continue our collaboration with The Arthouse in the future and thank them for their generous support”
Lukas Zueger-Knecht, Head of Partnerships at Oberland and a judge for The Arthouse Prize:
“Arthouse opens this June with the ambition of becoming part of Glasgow’s cultural life, not adjacent to it. The Arthouse Award establishes our partnership with The Glasgow School of Art on those terms, providing the structural support an emerging artist genuinely needs at the start of their practice. Kate’s commission opens the Award with work that draws the building’s history into a question about female visibility and bodily autonomy, and stages rebirth as a hopeful proposition rather than a closed statement. It speaks to the present with conviction. I am proud Arthouse opens with this commitment in place, and grateful to Kate and the School for the collaborative effort that made this possible.”
Oberland and the Arts
Oberland is a visionary new hotel group creating place-led hotels in heritage city centre buildings, where cultural commitment is a condition of the work, rather than a layer added once a building is complete. Arthouse Glasgow is the group’s first hotel and a clear expression of this approach. A striking 19th century townhouse in the heart of Glasgow’s cultural district is being brought back into meaningful public life, with restraint over reinvention. The Arthouse Award is the first sustained line of that work in Glasgow, facilitating meaningful patronage that is recurring, structural and committed to in advance. The permanent commissions will accumulate inside Arthouse over time, forming a record of local talent held within a historic Glasgow icon.
The Glasgow School of Art has shaped the city’s creative life for nearly 140 years, producing generations of artists who have defined British contemporary practice from within the city rather than from London, among them Nicolas Party and Caroline Walker. The Arthouse Award is built around that lineage. By committing to a recipient every year, in collaboration with the School, Arthouse aims to be a site where new Glasgow practice is produced, held and seen at the point in an artist’s career when production support and sustained visibility make the most difference. Kate Glenn opens that line of work in 2026. A new recipient follows in 2027, and every year after.
This is also how Oberland, the developer behind Arthouse, builds every hotel – around the conviction that becoming part of a city’s fabric is woven through real, institutional partnerships, structured for the long term.
The exterior installation remains on view until 21st June, with the interior installation launching with the hotel’s official opening on 24th June. The MFA 2026 exhibition runs 13-21 June at the GSA’s Stow Building, with an accompanying digital showcase which can be viewed at gsashowcase.net once the physical show has ended.
For further information, contact press@gsa.ac.uk
NOTES FOR EDITORS
About The Glasgow School of Art
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 – ranking 8th in the world and 5th in Europe in the QS World University Rankings 2026. 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 3,500 students and staff across architecture, design, digital, fine art and innovation in our campuses in Glasgow and Altyre (in the Scottish Highlands) and a thriving Open Studio programme delivering non-degree provision to over 1,500 students annually.
A New Space for Glasgow
Opening on 24th June 2026, Arthouse Glasgow will be a 76-bedroom hotel aiming to offer a new kind of city experience – one that truly expresses the spirit of its location. It occupies a striking 19th century townhouse on Bath Street – a street with a long connection to the arts, having been the home of Glasgow Art Club since 1892, set across two townhouses.
The Award is one expression of how Arthouse intends to sit in Glasgow – as a neighbour to the city, not a tenant. Built with the city, not for it. In working terms, this means programming shaped by the institutions and artists defining Glasgow, spaces designed to host the local creative community, and a deliberate decision to let the city’s own scene shape what the hotel becomes. The Award anchors this ethos to one of the institutions most responsible for shaping contemporary art in Scotland, and commits the hotel to that relationship for the long term.
Arthouse Glasgow hopes to serve as a place for the city’s locals as well as guests, with interiors by award-winning design studio A-nrd, an inviting lounge space with a dynamic cultural programme, and Celentano’s restaurant by the acclaimed Dean and Anna Parker.
At the centre of the property sits a bar and lounge designed to be used as an all-day hub – in the daytime as a space to meet, study or pause, with the atmosphere gradually shifting into evening with a programme of music and small cultural gatherings.
@arthouseglasgow
About Arthouse Glasgow
Arthouse Glasgow will be the first own-brand hotel by new British hotel group, Oberland – offering 76 bedrooms at a range of price points, as well as a restaurant and bar/lounge.
With a nod to Glasgow’s urban setting and industrial roots, the original fabric of the building has been preserved and brought forward. Wooden panelling, pine floors, an original birdcage lift and stained glass windows sit alongside contemporary interventions, with each layer of the building’s history made legible. The exposed aesthetic and neutral tones are offset by a curated mix of vintage and contemporary furniture. Designed by studio A-nrd, the look and feel will draw inspiration from the hotel’s name and the city’s artistic soul, embodying the eclectic style of an artist’s home – with pieces by local makers adding warmth, authenticity and personality.
On the ground floor, guests and non-residents can dine at Celentano’s by Anna and Dean Parker, who have gained a strong reputation for their Italian-influenced cooking. After five years building one of the city’s most loved restaurants – which earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand within six months of opening – the pair are relocating Celentano’s to Arthouse, with a refreshed look and menu, and twice as many covers as their previous home. At the heart of the house is a lounge space for locals, visitors and guests. The snacks and drinks here will also be led by Celentano’s – including their own liqueurs, such as vermouth for their Celentano’s Negroni.
Oberland has partnered with some of the city’s most vital cultural voices across everything from programming to print – including the Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow International and Illyus Brown of Illyus & Barrientos – embedding the house in the city’s cultural life. Thoughtful touches include in-room reading by Ripe Mags, and artworks by local and Scottish artists sourced in collaboration with notable galleries such as the Patricia Fleming gallery.
About Oberland
Based in the UK, Oberland is an established real estate investor and developer specialising in heritage regeneration projects. Furthering their work on hospitality and retail projects in the UK and across Europe, Arthouse Glasgow is their first hotel opening under their own brand, reflecting the co-founders’ shared vision for creating vibrant hotel experiences in desirable UK and European cities.
Directly operated and community minded, Oberland’s own-brand hotels will focus on elevating unique properties in culturally relevant and architecturally interesting urban landscapes in the UK and Europe. They will champion local brands and talent with each property, setting out to create true neighbourhood engagement and sense of place, where both locals and visitors can stay, socialise, relax and work.
Co-founder William Riordan has a proven track record of delivering human-centric, place-led mixed use real estate projects throughout Europe, the United States and China. These include the UBS Arena in New York, the Bicester Collection of luxury shopping villages in cities around the world, and the Mission Pacific Hotel and Seabird Resort in southern California.
Co-founder Andrew Dean has over a decade’s experience working with leading private investors in both branded B2C businesses and real estate across Europe and the United States. He was formerly European Investment Director for one of the world’s largest alternative investment managers, closing billions of real estate transactions, and is passionate about finding remarkable and characterful properties for Oberland’s portfolio.
