The Department of Art at Goldsmiths holds its open days during the Autumn term.
Please note that these Open Days do not include other departments, such as the Department of Design. You can find out more about studying in other departments at Goldsmiths Open Days.
Undergraduate
- Wednesday 17 October 2018
- Wednesday 14 November 2018
Starting promptly at 2pm, with a 30 minute presentation and Q&A with senior academic staff, at the Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre in the Whitehead Building.
This will be followed at 2.30pm by tours of the Department's art practice areas and studios on the New Cross campus.
There is no requirement to book in advance.
Postgraduate
- Wednesday 5 December 2018
For MFA Fine Art and MFA Curating:
Starting promptly at 2pm with introductory talks for both programmes at the Deptford Bridge site. These will be followed at 2.45pm by a visit to the postgraduate studios.
For PhD and MA Artists' Film & Moving Image:
Starting promptly with an introductory talk at 3.30pm at the Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre in the Whitehead Building on the New Cross campus with introductory talks for both programmes.
The day's activities are followed by tours of the art practice areas and facilities on the New Cross campus. These depart at 4pm from directly outside the the Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre. Tours last approximately one hour and are for all postgraduate applicants.
There is no requirement to book in advance.
Visit Goldsmiths
You can also visit us at our College-wide open days and campus tours.
For directions and campus maps, see how to get to Goldsmiths.
Meet some of our Art graduates
Phoebe
"You are given a studio and from day one are expected to begin to work as an artist."
"I was born in Hackney, East London, and studied BA Fine Art at Goldsmiths. I graduated in 2009. The Fine Art course at Goldsmiths is completely open. You are not given projects to do or segregated by the medium you choose to work with. Instead you are given a studio and from day one are expected to begin to work as an artist. With support from the tutors and technicians it's totally possible to prepare for a career in the arts, as an artist or curator or whatever you may want to do.
My experiences as a Goldsmiths student enhanced my employment prospects. I am now working as an artist, and just got back from a three-month residency in New York in which I produced a body of work called Pleasure Pieces. I had a studio that I made all of the work in and at the end of the three months I had my first solo show, which was really exciting. The whole point of learning is to help you grow, not necessarily change. It facilitates abilities that already exist. I definitely got a lot out of my time at Goldsmiths."
Steve McQueen
Turner Prize-winning artist and film-maker who was the first black director to win a Best Picture Oscar for 12 Years a Slave.
Steve McQueen made his first films at Goldsmiths, graduating from the BA Fine Art course in 1993. In the same year he made Bear, which documented an ambiguous encounter between two naked men, one of whom is McQueen himself. The film raised issues about violence, homoeroticism and race, themes that continue to influence McQueen's work. In the years that followed he made more short films, often projecting them onto the walls of an enclosed gallery space, for heightened intimacy.
In 1999 he won the Turner Prize for his original and uncompromising approach to film installation and his innovative presentation of work in other media. The organisers commented on McQueen’s ability to “take a simple incident or image and evoke complex emotions and ideas from them”.
During his varied career he has also worked as an official war artist in Iraq (2006), and represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2009.
In recent years McQueen has gained critical acclaim for filmmaking. In 2008 he won a BAFTA and the prestigious Caméra d’Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Hunger, his feature film about the 1981 Irish hunger strike. He co-wrote and directed Shame (2011), “a powerful plunge into the mania of addiction affliction”.
His most celebrated film, 12 Years A Slave, is based on the 1853 autobiography of Solomon Northup and brings to life the incredible true story of a free man who was forced into slavery. The film – which has been described by The New Yorker as "easily the greatest film ever made about American slavery" – has won awards including an Oscar for Best Picture, the first film with a black director to scoop the award. It also earned a BAFTA for Best Film, and a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture.
