The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) presents an exhibition of 14 research-led projects at the Xiamen International Design Art Week in Xiamen, China, launching today, 28 April, 2026. Staff and academics from the GSA’s School of Innovation and Technology (SIT) will also participate in lectures and discussions, joining leading artists, designers and scholars from China and around the world to explore how design can reach beyond the traditional boundaries of function and form to inform and create new sustainable futures.
The GSA’s contribution spotlights 14 research projects showcasing design-led innovation with their roots in Scotland but underpinned by international networks and global aims. Gathered under GSA Rural Lab’s ‘Innovation from the Edge‘ rubric, these works address social, technological, cultural and ecological challenges – from applications of artificial intelligence to new approaches to addressing climate change.
Informing this work is the research and activity of the GSA Rural Lab, which explores the role of design in rural contexts. GSA Rural Lab brings together interdisciplinary researchers, communities and industry partners to investigate how design can support sustainable development, resilience and innovation in rural and remote environments. Its work addresses challenges such as depopulation, land use, environmental change and access to resources, while also recognising the cultural richness and knowledge embedded in rural places.
This perspective runs through the themes of the exhibition, particularly in its emphasis on connecting global challenges with local responses. Projects shaped by GSA Rural Lab highlight how design can bridge urban–rural divides, integrate traditional practices with emerging technologies, and develop context-sensitive solutions that are environmentally and socially sustainable.
Professor Gordon Hush, Head of the School of Innovation and Technology at the GSA, said:
“This exhibition reflects the strength of design as a critical and creative discipline that can connect global challenges with deeply local contexts. Harnessing GSA Rural Lab’s research expertise, we are exploring how design can engage meaningfully with communities, cultures and environments. Initiatives such as Stuart Jeffrey and Lisa McDonald’s ‘One Ocean Hub’, where Scottish marine ecology issues directly connect with those of communities in Ghana, South Africa, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea, bring together emerging technologies and traditional knowledge to develop more sustainable and resilient futures.”
These multi-national and cross-cultural initiatives demonstrate how design and innovation approaches can engage with the ecological challenges of our current times—at both local and global scales—integrating emerging knowledge and technology with historical traditions of skills and craft-making to create new ways of living that preserve the present and safeguard the future. Participation in this showcase of leading innovative design in China underscores the GSA’s position as an international leader in art and design education, and follows the recent announcement of the QS 2026 World University Subject Rankings, where The Glasgow School of Art has climbed to number eight in the world top 10.
Projects include:
Bioregioning Kintyre: Community-Led Nature Restoration, Michael Johnson & Zoe Prosser (2025), explores the living connections between Gaelic culture, ceremony and the natural world. The initiative uses film to document the protection of at-risk habitats, such as temperate rainforests and seagrass environments, while advancing the concept of bio-regioning to reconnect ecological systems across natural and human boundaries.
Participatory Co-Production and Augmented Reality for Ocean Heritage, Pax Jakupa & Alvaro Sumaki Kuautonga, investigates how digital technologies can preserve the intricate cultural and spiritual relationships coastal communities in Namibia maintain with the ocean. Employing a methodology of participatory design and rapid ethnography, the research produced the AR application Efuta Letu Sida Hurib, which preserves deep community knowledge and intangible heritage.
Fingal’s Cave: an Audiovisual Experience, Stuart Jeffrey, UK (2025) is an immersive virtual reality application that combines 3D models, a narrative soundscape and interactive auralisation in a recreation of a visit to Fingal’s Cave. The project, designed to encourage viewers to become a part of the cultural narrative and explore the cave for themselves, move around and speak to hear their voice auralised as it would be inside the cave, explores the importance of audio in heritage visualisations and its practical implementation.
Knitting in the Round, Chris Wild (2020), represents practice-based research evaluating the role of digital innovation within the traditional craft context of Fair-Isle knitting. By introducing “provotypes”—3D digital engagement tools—into the Shetland design process, the project harnesses Product Design Engineering methodologies to support reflective dialogues and explore future design approaches while maintaining the situational value of traditional practice.
SurvØY, Saoirse Higgins & Jonathan Ford (2025) acts as a contemporary artist’s ‘island almanac,’ surveying scales of change within the highly sensitive island environment of Papay Westray, Orkney. By recording phenological data—recurring seasonal biological events such as bird migration and plant flowering—the project monitors weather, sea level, and geological shifts to challenge traditional notions of “island time” and identity.
Place Makers: Microcluster Networks addresses the need for sustainable regional economies in rural geographies through design-led innovation. Utilising “Actor-Network Mapping” and co-design, the research maps and connects micro-clusters of creative producers in Argyll and the Isles, moving beyond traditional business models to foster “localism” and resilience. This work underscores the value of place-based research in supporting creative growth within distributed Highlands and Islands contexts.
The exhibition will also include a special documentary film commissioned by the GSA, Highland Time: Ten years of Winter School at The Glasgow School of Art by Callum Rice, Ross Woodhead, and Gordon Hush. The film documents and explores ‘Winter School’, a pioneering and globally significant cross-cultural collaborative teaching experience aimed at undergraduate, master’s and PhD students from around the world. Now in its 11th year, this annual event, held over two sessions – one online, one in person at the GSA’s Highland & Islands campus on the Alytre Estate near Inverness, Scotland – brings together students and leading international professors of design, engineering, computer science and social sciences to explore a contemporary challenge (combining ecological, technological and social dimensions) through an intensive project experience.
Professor Gordon Hush, the Head of the School of Innovation and Technology, Professor Paul Chapman, GSA’s Director of Emerging Technology and Kerri Thornton, Lecturer in Interactive Application Development at SIT, delivered speeches on 26 April during the Design Art Week’s academic programme. Part of Xiamen International Design Art Week’s lecture series – focusing on sustainability, art ecology, and design education innovation – invited academics to investigate the distinctive developmental trajectory of the arts and cultural creative industries, exploring its intertwined relationship with the co-evolution of design traditions, industrial policy, and educational systems. Alongside their Chinese colleague, Ma Sai, Director of the Centre for Art and Science Research at Tsinghua University, and under the title Decoding the Genes of Artistic Creativity, they explored the synergistic mechanisms that shape art and design across diverse contexts, explaining the generative logic of creative ecosystems while engaging in a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary dialogue.
Xiamen International Design Art Week is one of China’s premiere cultural and academic events, presenting a wide programme of curated exhibitions, academic seminars, a city-wide public art map, as well as setting standards across the country for creative innovation and professional practice. Xiamen will host more than 100 creative works from 129 outstanding designers and artists from 19 countries, covering multiple fields such as sculpture, painting, spatial design, product design, interaction design, and public art.
For further information contact press@gsa.ac.uk
NOTES FOR EDITORS
Full list of projects at the GSA’s China Exhibition:
- Knitting in the Round – Provotyping to explore innovation in Fair Isle knitting. Chris Wild, UK (2020).
- Anthropogenic Sweet. Fiona MacLellan, UK (2019).
- Bioregioning Kintyre Community-Led Nature Restoration. Michael Johnson & Zoe Prosser, UK (2025).
- SurvØY.Saoirse Higgins & Jonathan Ford, UK (2025).
- Fingal’s Cave.Stuart Jeffrey, UK (2025).
- OMNI – Ecologies of Intelligence for Nature Restoration in 2035. Callum Miller,Marika Mista, Riccardo Cossu, Julia Kubiak, UK, Italy, Poland (2023).
- The Journey. Austin Wolfe, UK (2023).
- PlaceMakers: Microcluster Networks. Michael Johnson, UK (2020).
- Landscape Decision-making in Scotland. Michael Johnson, Lynn-Sayers McHattie, UK, (2020-2023).
- Cocooned in Harmony. Eric Debrah Otchere, Republic of Ghana (2022).
- Our Ocean, Our Identity. Pax Jakupa, Álvaro Sumaki Kuautonga, Lloyd Newton, Solomon Islands (2023).
- Highland Time: Ten years of Winter School at The Glasgow School of Art. Callum Rice, Ross Woodhead, Gordon Hush, UK, 2026.
- Aku and the Journey of the Turtle Spirit. Drama Queens, Republic of Ghana, 2023.
- Augmented Reality Application: Efuta Letu Sida Hurib, Marly Samuel, Namibia, 2025.
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. 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.
About the School of Innovation and Technology (SIT)
The School of Innovation and Technology (SIT) explores future opportunities for innovation by considering alternative ways of living in the present. SIT aims to integrate social and technological innovations in a way that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries within art and science and examines complex questions in fields such as healthcare, education, technology, and pressingly within the context of the climate/ecology crisis.
About GSA RURAL LAB
The Glasgow School of Art Rural Lab is a new, interdisciplinary research centre designed to explore the intersections of research, innovation, education and enterprise within rural contexts. Based at the GSA Highlands & Islands campus in Forres, and building on a twenty-year foundation, Rural Lab engages in research that explores sustainable economies, cultural heritage, and place-driven innovation. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration and partnerships, Rural Lab encourages new ways of thinking about the potential for sustainable growth in rural spaces.
About Winter School
Winter School is an international and cross-cultural experience aimed at undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD students from around the world. This annual event brings together students and professors of design, engineering, computer science, and social sciences to explore a contemporary challenge (combining ecological, technological, and social dimensions) through an intensive project experience. The two-phase workshop requires students to reconsider their disciplinary contribution in exploring an interdisciplinary challenge and asks them to work collaboratively with others to reflect critically on their own local situations and produce innovative outcomes, responses, and proposals for change.
