UAL Research

22/10/2026

The Battleground of Art. Radical Curating In The Crisis of Neoliberalism.

Book Launch and Conversation with Marco Baravalle, Jennifer Warren and Dave Beech.

2 November 2026
16.00 - 18.00

Chelsea College of Arts
16 John Islip Street
London, SW1P 4JU

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-battleground-of-art-radical-curating-in-the-crisis-of-neoliberalism-tickets-2003761284943?aff=oddtdtcreator&_gl=1*cvb0o2*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTk3OTI3NzMzNi4xNzkyNjYzNTg5*_ga_TQVES5V6SH*czE3OTI2NzM5NDQkbzIkZzAkdDE3OTI2NzM5NDQkajYwJGwwJGgw

Abstract:

In The Battleground of Art. Radical Curating In The Crisis of Neoliberalism (Verso, 2026), Baravalle examines radical curating as a response to the neoliberalisation of art and culture. He looks at how artists, curators and cultural workers have developed alternative institutional forms. Drawing on Operaismo, decolonial theory and twenty years of radical curatorial practice, he explores “alter-institutions”: collective, autonomous infrastructures that challenge dominant models of cultural and economic organisation. The book moves between histories of radical art and present-day practices, from independent cultural spaces in Venice to cultural resistance in Palestine, and raises questions of institutional autonomy, collective organisation, cultural labour, decolonisation and the commons.

Book Launch and Conversation with Marco Baravalle, Jennifer Warren and Dave Beech

01/10/2026

Time & Value: Work, Fashion, Culture

This public seminar will explore issues around value and the materialisation of time through an examination of the temporalities of fashion, cultural worth and the algorithmic management of work.

Friday 9 October 2026

2pm - 4.30pm

Banqueting Hall, Chelsea College of Arts, 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU

RSVP: https://www.arts.ac.uk/whats-on/time-and-value-work,-fashion,-culture?_gl=1*iuv0ty*_gcl_au*OTY2Mzk4NDk4LjE3ODk0NjA5NTI.*_ga*MTM3OTk4MDAzMy4xNzg5NDYwOTUy*_ga_4MP54QS6W3*czE3OTA4NDI5MDEkbzkkZzEkdDE3OTA4NDM1NzEkajU1JGwwJGgxNDMyNzAyMDA0

Participants and organisers:

Caroline Evans, a fashion historian and Professor Emerita at Central Saint Martins

Phoebe Moore, Professor of Management and the Futures of Work at Essex Business School, University of Essex

Patrycja Kaszynska, Senior Research Fellow, UAL

Erling Björgvinsson, Professor of design, HDK-Valand

Dave Beech, Reader in Art and Marxism, UAL

Elena Raviola, Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Professor in Design Management

Carol Tulloch, Professor of Dress, Diaspora and Transnationalism, UAL

Abstract:

This seminar will look at how value and time have been materialised in art and design, from the organisation of human activity by clocks and calendars to the temporal dimension of food, clothing, work, leisure, the built environment, and so forth. Time is a vivid lens through which to understand value, often expressed as the difference between quantitative and qualitative time, but also as separators of private and public time, work and leisure, sacred and profane time. How are imaginaries of value expressed, implied and materialised in different experiences of time? How are temporal regimes enforced, negotiated and resisted? How do imaginaries of value operate trans-generationally and change over time?

Image Credit: Dave Beech (Tess’s pillow at the dairy farm in Thomas Hardy’s novel “Tess of the D’Urbavilles”, pencil drawing, 2026)

This public seminar will explore issues around value and the materialisation of time through an examination of the temporalities of fashion, cultural worth and the algorithmic management of work.

18/09/2026

UAL Professorial Platform Lecture

Professor Andrea Luka Zimmerman: Intuitive Cinema, Possible Film? A Poetics for the Politics of Now.

Join us at Central Saint Martins for a lecture by Professor Andrea Luka Zimmerman, presenting their making of what has been called Intuitive Cinema. This term has been applied to their work as a way of understanding its inter-relation of the embodied, the experienced and the engaged. Considering the wider formal and thematic possibilities of moving image practice, this illustrated talk will explore how film can advocate for the marginalised, the 'other' - both human and not - in a world of multiple crises.

Welcome by Professor Rathna Ramanathan, Provost of CSM and Executive Dean for Global Affairs.

Introductions by Michiko Oki, CSM Senior Lecturer, BA Performance Design and Practice.

Presentation followed by an in-conversation with Nadine Monem, CSM Lecturer, BA Culture Criticism and Curation.

Tuesday 6 October 2026

6.30pm - 8.45pm

Lecture: 6.30pm - 7.45pm
Reception: 7.45pm - 8.45pm

Location: Platform Theatre, Central Saint Martins, 1 Granary Square, London N1C 4AA

RSVP: https://www.arts.ac.uk/whats-on/professorial-platform-lecture-intuitive-cinema,-possible-film

Through an illustrated presentation covering their recent moving image works (While the Gods Were Busy with Another Child, here and not here, Wayfaring Stranger and earlier titles), Andrea Luka Zimmerman will argue for these works as Intuitive Cinema, a form of Possible Film, which seeks a radical re-engagement with a world in turmoil. Centring those routinely marginalised and 'othered' - whether through class, race, geography or gender - by hierarchies of power, this event will draw from Zimmerman's own biography to reflect on both the potentialities and limits of structural engagement. Investigating what it means to be fully attentive, and how to make work ‘in relation’, to seek the ‘with’ (not about), Zimmerman will centre ideas of gratitude and justice in analysing the structural, social and cultural contexts from and into which the work emerges.

Join us at Central Saint Martins for a lecture by Professor Andrea Luka Zimmerman, presenting their making of what has been called Intuitive Cinema. This term has been applied to their work as a way of understanding its inter-relation of the embodied, the experienced and the engaged. Considering the...

28/08/2026

UAL partnership featured in Arts Professional

An opinion piece by Clare Connor, chief executive of The Place and London Contemporary Dance School, discusses the school's partnership with UAL, which is now entering a new phase after 5 years of formal collaboration. The article shares why the collaboration has continued to succeed and the importance of meaningful partnerships in the cultural sector.

A joint PhD programme is available: https://theplace.org.uk/lcds-courses/phd-programme/

https://www.arts.ac.uk/research/phd-and-mphil-degrees

Read more in Arts Professional:
https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/feature/creativity-through-collaboration?utm_source=All+staff+list+%5BDO+NOT+DELETE%5D&utm_campaign=bd67c73f65-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_08_28_09_44&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-bd67c73f65-564044420

Join UAL's vibrant community of researchers. We offer theoretical and practice-based research programmes, leading to an MPhil or PhD.

01/05/2026

Learning to Collaborate:
Exploring collaborative skills development for meeting complex challenges

Thursday 28 May 2026

PGR event from 1pm
Speaker event from 2.30pm

UAL Chelsea College of Arts
London

Hosted by the Complex Collaborations Design Research Hub

The need for more collaboration is undeniable. The environmental and societal problems we face are too complex. The promise of solo endeavour is fading and the need for multiple perspectives, joint efforts and collective knowledge is evident. If we are to meet the complex challenges of polycrisis, learning to collaborate must be an explicit endeavour.

Join us to explore how complexity challenges the way we foster collaborative skills with four speakers, each on a pathway to foster collaborative capabilities with communities, with emerging and established creative practitioners, and between institutions, through formal and informal pedagogic practice.

This event will also be an opportunity to learn from the findings of two pedagogic research projects from the Complex Collaborations Hub.

Speaker panel:
Adam Lusby
Rachel Bronstein
Kieran Mahon
Judah Armani

Tickets available via eventbrite:

Exploring collaborative skills development for meeting complex challenges

27/03/2026

It began with a dress.

In 2013, UAL Professor Helen Storey was approached by the climate scientists at the UK MET Office and challenged to create a piece of work that could capture public imagination towards an informed understanding of climate change and all it means for our planet. The dress was first exhibited at a key moment in time, at the gateway to COP21 – United Nations Climate Summit, Paris, in 2015.

The dress was created from a decommissioned UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) refugee tent, that once housed a displaced Syrian family at Zaatari Camp in Jordan, and was gifted to the project by UNHCR.

As the dress began to tour more widely, it was the unanswerable questions from children about the piece that, in 2016, took Helen to the gates of Zaatari to find answers – there, life changed entirely.

This film ‘For Our Time’, by David Betteridge, captures highlights of the 10-year journey that followed, in collaboration with Deepa Patel and a team which grew to over 200 people, and finally across 3 continents.

It is a story of wild collaboration and what can happen, at the edges of us all.

It began with a dress. In 2013, Prof Helen Storey was approached by the climate scientists at the UK MET Office and challenged to create a piece of work that...

26/03/2026

UAL leads the world in undergraduate creative education for the 8th year running.

For the eighth consecutive year, UAL is the highest-ranked undergraduate arts and design educator in the world.

UAL is ranked 2nd in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for art and design. The Royal College of Art, dedicated exclusively to postgraduate study, continues to hold first position.

Professor Karen Stanton, Vice-Chancellor, said: "Behind every ranking are the students who chose to trust us with their creative education and the staff who come to work every day to make that education extraordinary.

“Eight years at the top of the world rankings tells you something important, not just about UAL, but about what happens when a society invests seriously and consistently in creativity. Individual institutions cannot do this alone – we need to rely on a pipeline that makes creative education available to all. To maintain the UK’s world class creative industries, supporting arts education in this country has never been more important. Our graduates go on to power the economy through entrepreneurial start-ups that create more jobs and through using their creative skills to solve problems of the future.

“Our 2032 strategy is our commitment to go further, widening access so that more people at every stage of life can experience a UAL education and become part of our community, deepening our global partnerships and ensuring our students are equipped to navigate and shape a world being transformed by technology. The creative industries are one of the fastest-growing parts of our economy. The world needs what our graduates create and UAL's job is to make sure they are ready."

Image: Myah Hasbany, 2025 BA (Hons) Fashion Design: Communication, Central Saint Martins, UAL

11/03/2026

UAL Professorial Platform: Taking Heart in a Time of Hatred.

Professor Pratāp Rughani asks what happens to art & education in a time of heightened polarisation?

Introduced by UAL Vice Chancellor, Professor Karen Stanton.
Lecture followed by an In-Conversation with Professor Mark Sealy OBE.

29 April 2026
17:30
London College of Communication

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ual-professorial-platform-lecture-taking-heart-in-a-time-of-hatred-tickets-1895946640439?aff=oddtdtcreator

As the drift towards ‘toxic othering’ today spills from social media to British streets (echoing the 1970s - hopefully not the 1930s) what can our communities’ artists and creative practitioners; audiences, students and teachers do to tilt our cultures towards reconnection, repair and healing?

Professor of Documentary Practice, Dr Pratāp Rughani, asks what happens to art and education in a time of heightened polarisation?

09/03/2026

TrAIN Open Lecture

iLiana Fokianaki - Director Kunsthalle Bern

11 March 2026

6pm - 7.30pm
Online

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/train-open-lecture-online-iliana-fokianaki-tickets-1984455554985?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

Since 2020, through her research platform The Bureau of Care, iLiana Fokianaki has examined the concept of care and its political and ethical dimensions in relation to environmental and social justice, and their implications for curating and institution-making.

As Founder and Director of State of Concept Athens (2013–2024), she transformed the Athenian art scene, bringing artists such as Laure Prouvost, Sanja Iveković, Forensic Architecture, Kader Attia, and Kapwani Kiwanga to the Greek capital.

She has curated exhibitions for Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; e-flux, New York; KADIST; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Ljubljana, as well as public projects for institutions including the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, New York.

In 2022–23, she served as Artistic Director of Survival Kit 13, a large-scale contemporary art festival organised by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art. She lectures regularly at academies, independent spaces, museums, and institutions worldwide, and has convened discussions with thinkers including Silvia Federici, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Jodi Dean, and Yanis Varoufakis.

She publishes regularly in e-flux journal and has contributed to numerous books and publications. A series of her books will be published by Archive Books in 2025.

https://www.arts.ac.uk/research/research-centres/TrAIN Research Centre

Photo © Kunsthalle Bern, Yoshiko Kusano

Please join us for a talk by iLiana Fokianaki, Director of Kunsthalle Bern.

03/03/2026

Moving Image in a Doctoral Frame

Professor Pratāp Rughani in conversation with Edwin Mingard and Alessandra Ferrini. In association with the Moving Image Review and Art Journal (MIRAJ).

25 March 2026
4.30pm - 6.00pm
followed by a reception

UAL London College of Communication, Elephant and Castle, London SE1 6SB

RSVP: https://www.arts.ac.uk/whats-on/moving-image-in-a-doctoral-frame

"Why make moving image practice in a Doctoral frame?

What can film-making mean as research?

Join LCC Doctoral researchers to explore the journey of moving image making as experienced by students and supervisors. Why do it and what's possible?"

Featuring artists’ documentary work within the context of a PhD highlights not only the finished creative outputs but also the reflective, critical, and methodological processes that underpin them and informs Knowledge Exchange.

Image Credit: Film still, Gaddafi in Rome: Anatomy of a Friendship (Alessandra Ferrini, 2024).