Thank you 2022

Welcome to the 2022 Annual Review for our supporters and alumni. This is an opportunity to thank our supporters whose engagement in the College makes a difference.

More than just an Equity Award

Now in their second year, the Equity Awards funded by individuals, organisations and Trusts and Foundations are proving to be an enormous success. These are focused towards Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students given the Awarding Gap. Nineteen additional students have joined the 32 this year with more in the pipeline.     

Equity Scholars are the successful recipients of an Equity Award which has been implemented to close the Gap for a particular group of students through financial support.  

The Equity Award Scheme launched in September 2021 and 32 students received financial support for their next 3 years of study.  

Dr Marl’ene Edwin is the Academic Lead for the Equity Awards. Marl’ene has been a member of staff at Goldsmiths for a very long time and as a Black woman in Higher Education is aware of the challenges our Equity Scholars may face.  

This term we invited our Equity Scholars to evaluate the impact of the Equity Awards programme using Illuminate, a methodology developed at Goldsmiths by Dr Anna Carlile. 

Highly participatory, Illuminate has an immediate impact on participants, giving research subjects a voice, and conferring transferrable research skills (interviewing, data analysis, running workshops and presentations, journaling, filmmaking etc.).     

Three successful workshops were held and the scholars have produced wonderful posters outlining elements of good practice and useful recommendations to be showcased at an event for our Equity Award donors in January 2023. 

Curatorial Practice – building links with China

Asymmetry Foundation has created a PhD scholarship and said, “As a foundation where education is a core value, we’re proud to partner with Goldsmiths and support an annual PhD Scholarship in a course that promotes innovative and expansive thinking in an open and supportive environment.”
 
Awarded to one successful candidate per academic year, the Scholarship covers the full four years of the Advanced Practices PhD programme, including tuition fees, monthly rent, and living and research costs. 

Asymmetry is dedicated to nurturing curatorial practice and disseminating knowledge about Greater Chinese and Sinophone contemporary art. Their Goldsmiths Scholarship is an amazing opportunity for a practitioner working in this area.  

Goldsmiths is thrilled that an additional student took up their Asymmetry Foundation Scholarship this October. You can read more about this student on the Asymmetry website.

Goldsmiths Alchemy – working its magic

Alchemy is a professional creative music lab for local young people aged 13-18, who meet every Saturday, collaborating to create original music and develop performance, composition and production skills.   

Young people’s feedback has been incredibly positive: 

“I could express myself without being judged”  
“It feels like one big family.”   
 
Young people work with professional and student musicians and producers, with additional support from youth work students from the University’s Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies (STaCS) department. 

2022 was a busy year for Alchemy and saw the team returning to face-to-face provision post-pandemic. The young people took part in a variety of exciting performances, including:

• The launch of Lewisham’s Civic University Partnership at the Horniman Museum in October 2022. 
• As part of a year-long residents programme at Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art. 
• In collaboration with the sound system Unit 137 in the Lewisham Sound System Trail in May 2022, as well as at the Lewisham People’s Day festivities in July 2022, as part of the Lewisham Borough of Culture.  
• Several other exciting live events such as the NX Records shop takeover (November 2022), Still I Rise – the Alchemy Showcase (April 2022) and Climate Home Festival of Action and Resistance (July 2022). 

We are very grateful to generous donors the Backstage Trust and the Progress Foundation for their wonderful support of this programme.

The creation of the Queer Histories Award

The Centre for Queer History has used funds generously donated by Geoff Hardy and Peter Roscoe to support MA and PhD students reading queer history at Goldsmiths.

The aim of the fund, called the Creating Queer Histories Award, is to make education more accessible, open-up opportunities for collaboration, and provide research training for our students and alumni.  

Last year, the award supported a number of students, including alumnus and PhD candidate Carlie Pendleton (they/she) at a key moment in their studies.

With thanks to a specialist coach funded by the Creating Queer Histories Award, Carlie has subsequently passed their PhD upgrade and is now officially a PhD candidate. The examiners praised Carlie's work, expressing their joy at reading such sophisticated and powerful research into fat queer activism. 

Goldsmiths ACME MFA Award – a stepping stone for Art graduates 

Finishing art school and stepping into the world can be a difficult transition. ACME, Goldsmiths and Jane Hamlyn MBE came together in 2014 to create the Goldsmiths MFA Award and which has supported nine Goldsmiths alumni to take their first steps into the art world. Aiming to provide a bridge between art school and professional practice, the award includes a generous bursary, rent-free studio space and a mentoring programme.

See some of the alumni artwork and what they say about their award.

Sarah Duffy 2013-14 recipient

“Receiving The ACMA Goldsmiths MFA Studio Award was a foundational experience in my career, allowing me to build connections and begin to establish myself as a working artist.

"I have since gone on to exhibit and perform extensively, both in the UK and abroad and I am currently a resident on the five-year ACME Fire Station programme in London. I continue to benefit from the experience I gained during my time as the award’s inaugural recipient, and I am grateful for the opportunities it has opened up for me."

Cynthia Cruz 2014-15 recipient

"The residency was really important for me after graduating. It gave me some confidence and validation for my work as well as allowed me to focus on a body of work straight after graduating.

"I am still close friends with the other artists in the residency so it really allowed me to form friendships with artists in London."

Chris Timms 2017-18 recipient

"I am extremely grateful for the award, it really gave me so much material support to try out new things like hosting an event, printing a newspaper, paying to work with actors - all of which I simply would not have been able to explore using my own means.

"Faced with the seemingly impossible fall-off of support and abyss after university, the award really focused me toward continuing, when it would be very easy to become preoccupied with everything else."

New Cross Fire Bursary Awards – commemorating a local event of national importance 

The New Cross Fire was a devastating moment in our local history. The generous support of Lewisham Council has allowed us to offer a bursary in memory of the victims of the Fire. Established in 2006, the New Cross Fire Bursary supports Lewisham residents who otherwise may not be able to attend university. 
 
For the first time since 2019, we invited recipients of our New Cross Fire Bursaries to come together for a formal awards ceremony on Thursday 13 October. The ceremony was hosted by the Warden and the Mayor of Lewisham and attended by recipients' supporters, survivors of the New Cross Fire and their families, local councillors, students and guests. 

Professor Frances Corner, Warden of Goldsmiths, said: “We are proud to be working closely with the Council to ensure people in Lewisham are able to experience the transformative impact of higher education in their home borough.” 

Damien Egan, Mayor of Lewisham, said: “Given the average student debt is now £50,000 it’s a huge barrier to many Lewisham families. This is all the more relevant as we find ourselves entering a cost-of-living crisis. 

“We set the bursary up in 2006 to not only honour the 14 young lives lost in the New Cross fire but also to ensure something positive came out of that tragedy. We can only do this with the support of Goldsmiths and the victims’ families, and I thank them both.” 

Read the full story for more about the bursary and the 2022 event.

Goldsmiths CCA in 2022 – approaching its fifth year

A message from Sarah McCrory, Gallery Director

"Writing several weeks into an already enormously successful exhibition by Italian designer and artist Cinzia Ruggeri, it’s easy to forget that it’s been a tough year for the arts across London.

"Our city has seen cuts across the board, with many of our friends and loved institutions have received difficult and distressing news. The CCA has also had some disappointment, but we are also celebrating this year’s programme and the support received from our generous donors. 

"The programming across 2022 included 47 insightful and brilliant proposals in Testament, looking directly at the crisis of monuments, and how we address our histories. Virginia Overton addressed the building and made a bold exhibition which managed to be both tough and elegant, exploring materials and specifically the legacy of Anthony Caro.

"Steph Huang’s first institutional exhibition looked at trade and food, through the lens of her background as a Taiwanese but now London-based artist. This summer, Trevor Mathison’s exhibition included both his archive, and a new commission that recorded the sounds of the building and its environs, and Hadi Fallahpisheh brought his cat, dog and mouse trio into the gallery, exploring the darkness and humour in familial and sexual relationships. 

"As well as our exhibitions, our Residents programme is now well-established and international partners are in discussion about how this model might work for them.

"It’s vital to us that we are important to our audiences in New Cross and Lewisham, but also part of essential discourse around what it means to create contemporary exhibitions, and develop programmes for young people, and to have conversations about how our work compares with our international peers. 

"We end this year by launching a Young Artist Fund. This fund has a target of £115k to help CCA develop its Schools, Residents and Episodes programmes, straddling artists from 4 years old, through to artists practising and having their first institutional exhibition with us – important support for important young people.

"2022 has been incredible – but we are gearing up for 2023, and the impact this fund will have on young artists."

To view full details of all the exhibitions, events and related images in the last and forthcoming year’s calendar please visit the gallery’s website.

Goldsmiths CCA: Residents 

Residents is a Goldsmiths CCA programme, inaugurated in Autumn 2021. The programme sees artistic collectives and initiatives, including local community and student and alumni groups, take up residence in our front gallery space over a long term. 

Over the course of the last year, there have been 10 groups in residence in the gallery, each using the dedicated space to regularly host their activities as an additional resource for their core work.

Each group receives funding which can be spent towards their activities, travel, materials and hosting events and workshops.  

To find out more about the Residents programme, please visit the Goldsmiths CCA website.

The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity support at Goldsmiths – eclectic projects enabled in 2022

From supporting our buildings, with funds to build new, and renovate existing, spaces on campus, to providing scholarships for our students, and supporting a range of the College’s projects across the scope of our activities in London, The Goldsmiths’ Company have been a valued and generous partner of Goldsmiths since it founded the College in 1891.  
 
Most recently, The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity have been providing funds towards the Open Book programme at Goldsmiths. Open Book aims to enable people from a variety of deprived backgrounds to access and succeed in higher education.

The Goldsmiths Company Charity are vital supporters of their work in prisons in London and the South East, offering specialised prison-based education modules to women prisoners.  

Additionally, The Goldsmiths’ Company have also generously supported the Goldsmiths’ Company Engagement Curator role at Goldsmiths CCA over the past three years. Since the funding begun, the Engagement Curator has been able to develop a diverse and multi-faceted approach to engaging local communities, school children, families and students in contemporary art, through programmes associated with the exhibitions shown within the gallery.  

Goldsmiths is grateful to The Goldsmiths’ Company for their ongoing generosity and commitment to our work in the local area and beyond. 

Goldsmiths’ Mentoring Scheme – the gift of experience

The Goldsmiths Mentoring Scheme enables students to benefit from their predecessors’ experiences. When asked what they enjoyed the most about the scheme, alumni said they appreciated being able to "impact somebody at the point in their education in which I was struggling myself".

Another mentor noted "I came away with admiration for the tenacity and focus of my mentee, and an increased insight into myself as well," while another said they most enjoyed "the 'click', the enthusiasm of both of us, and now, a friendship".

Goldsmiths Mentoring Scheme matches alumni with students for six-month mentoring relationships from January to July every year. The scheme, dedicated to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic and Disabled students is now in its fourth year and goes from strength to strength. There were 98 matches in 2021-22, and the impact of these relationships was resounding.

The return of in-person graduation ceremonies 

Graduation season is always a celebratory time at Goldsmiths, particularly after the pandemic-induced hiatus on ceremonies. This year saw no fewer than three sets of in-person ceremonies, in January, April and July.

The additional April dates allowed students whose graduations were delayed to celebrate with their loved ones and all the events were full of joy as students became a part of the alumni community. 

Alumni talent showcased through Goldlink

Goldlink is Goldsmiths’ annual print magazine. Each edition focuses on a distinct theme and highlights the work of students, staff, and alumni. This year in the magazine’s 52nd edition work extended to the cover of the magazine which was created by alumnus and illustrator Joshua Drewe.

Browse Goldlink 52 online and take a look at Joshua’s amazing cover illustration. 

Our alumni – a global community with Goldsmiths at its heart

Goldsmiths supports a global alumni community of over 75,000 alumni in 150 countries. We provide news and events of interest through digital communications and Goldlink, the alumni magazine.

We provide platforms such as Goldsmiths Connect which enable alumni to network with each other and with current students. We also support alumni events online and in-person, including 146 alumni who studied at Goldsmiths in the 1970s and 80s attending an all-day, in-person, alumni reunion in the autumn of 2021.  
  
We want to thank all of our alumni who have generously donated to support Goldsmiths. In 2021-22, alumni donations were used to fund the Student Hardship Fund (£65k) and Equity Awards (£24k), and we received a generous donation of £20k to support the Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art. 
  
We are very grateful to our alumni who contributed over 1,000 volunteering hours, including 92 alumni who delivered 920 hours of mentoring to students on the Goldsmiths Mentoring Scheme to support Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students, disabled students and Gold Award students.