Goldsmiths MFA Degree Show 2026
Art schools are going through a hard time at the moment. With their funding in dire straits (along with most other colleges and universities), the unhelpful rhetoric around 'Mickey Mouse degrees' are now ensuring that marginalised young people are fear-mongered away from studying and producing the arts. This has been the same story for many years now, whereby traditional forms of employment (and most importantly, being able to pay back that student loan) has been front of mind. While being able to get a job is obviously important, it is as if pursuing one's passion and talents isn't something to be celebrated and accommodated.
Goldsmiths is arguably the best place to study art in the UK. Based in London, where a huge amount of institutional and grassroots art is made and exhibited, is one thing, but the creative community is itself incredibly unique. I am not claiming to be entirely impartial, and although my experience (2013-2016 and 2020-2022) was dogged by various issues (mostly drastic cuts made to courses and administrative services), the shining light that prevails was, and is, that students and staff are largely 'locked in'. This is not necessarily a commitment to the art world writ large, but the context, the histories, and the various pathways to creative pursuits. Conversations and discourses in and around Goldsmiths go so deep that people who just want to make art and go home will truly hate it. Again, with Goldsmiths being my alma mater, this is a subjective take, and even the league tables don't agree: you can study at St Andrew's if you're concerned with that, but of course, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
I have been to two other degree shows this summer, and I have to say that the postgraduate degree show at Goldsmiths is in a league of its own. Sprawled across the six campus buildings, the art keeps going and going, and giving and giving. Some spaces feel unfairly isolated compared to the Ben Pimlott Building and Laurie Grove Baths, both rendered centralised due to their proximity to both New Cross Gate station and Goldsmiths CCA, but let's have a whistle-stop tour through my highlights.
ZOMMER's work plays with infrastructure and systems of resistance. The towering sculpture of disused car parts is striking as soon as the viewer enters the space, and steals the spotlight instantly. Videos are played from small openings embedded in the sculpture, using sports and speculation as a tool of attention mining. ZOMMER has married two key aspects of contemporary art: Instagram-ability, in that the appetite of the viewer is captured immediately and then secondarily through documentation, followed by a more meaningful message. Videos play scenes of both benign repetition and violence, which were all the more curious to witness on the day of the World Cup final.
Hongbo Ji's paintings are reminiscent of Mark Leckey's observations of youth culture and urban spaces, and have a soft, blurred, crepuscular quality. The succinct titles of his paintings, such as 'London', suggest an impersonal attachment to the locations, but perhaps these snapshots have developed into emotional capital for the artist. This is certainly transferred to the viewer.
Mia Grassie-Clarke's installation of paintings on a bespoke wallpaper background is incredibly satisfying. I feel like it will be spotted in Polyester Zine or similar very soon. Using a blue paint motif and reproducing imagery of cats, flowers, sheep, naked selfies, flowers in vases, there is a domestic, safe feeling in this work that will resonate with many. At a time when social media has destroyed itself and brought our collective sanity with it, Grassie-Clarke shows an analogue sense of world-building, diaries and archiving the self.
Erin Gallagher's sculptural installation is one of the least Goldsmiths-coded corners of the degree show, but that's not a negative. Ecology is clearly a core theme to the artist's work and research, and the artist's sculpture of a crouching girl with fauna emanating outwards from her into the landscape of New Cross through the window felt really special.
I'd seen Ella Fleck's work in her solo show at London gallery Season 4 Episode 6 last year, and was really pleased to spot it again. She has undertaken undercover research training to be a 'chatter', hired to engage with the subscribers of OnlyFans models. She has changed the names and any identifiable information from each person, and created an installation whereby the exchanges between subscribers and the 'chatters', who men believed to be the models, are saved and recreated to an absurd effect. The chats are on screens for all to see, but this time round the voices reverberate through a bespoke flooring, immersing the viewer in the conversation through text and bodily vibrations.
Yifan Wu's work was hidden away in the Richard Hoggart Building, one of the more recognisable Goldsmiths campus structures, but a total maze to find any of the students' work, even as someone who knows the layout reasonably well. His paintings are hauntingly beautiful, somewhat similar to Hongbo Ji's paintings as discussed above, but arguably elevated to a next level, merging emotive scenes with sombre and at times sinister aesthetics. A gothic dream.
Hanyu Wang has adopted a fascinating concept of amplifying the misalignment of sensory understanding. For example, the idea of what you see and hear and smell not corresponding with each other, again making a confusing if not absurd effect, but this time we are asked to embrace this uncertainty. At a time of fake news, a widespread sense of mistrust and lack of compassion and understanding towards each other, an interrogation of systems of knowledge is increasingly essential. Her installation, 'Nothing is Enough', included the slogan, "You may leave with nothing. That may be the point." I adore art that has something to say, but also respects the viewer enough to create their own meaning.
Wanlin Cao's work spoke straight to my heart, with a series of boxes making up the installation 'Shedding Diary', documenting the artist's shedding hair from May 2026 to present. The body as orator and the body of archive in its purest form. A painting 'Hangnail' depicting exactly that struck a chord too. Their work feels like a manifestation of stress disorders without leaning into pseudo-therapy models or pathologising themselves. I have a great amount of time for this.
Louis Jeck's video installation documenting episodes of distress heightened by his neurodivergence is refreshing, insightful, and immaculately displayed. Whether topics or issues are as direct as those found in Jeck's work, or more abstract as is the case in much of Goldsmiths' practice and teaching, one thing is particularly consistent: the dedication. The MFA course is two years, whereas most masters degrees in fine art are just the one, so perhaps that comes into play, but every single artist I saw gave themselves fully to their work, and that cannot be underestimated or undervalued. There is soul work at play here. Although it is rather gauche to assume that one can develop some kind of parasocial understanding of an artist's inner world through their work, there is so much in this degree show that grants us a vast yet curated insight into the directions of a new generation of contemporary artists.
