Precision, power, and performance: Vice-Chancellor honours standout postgraduates in 2025 Art Prize
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The Vice-Chancellor’s Art Prize recognises students whose work demonstrates outstanding creativity, rigour, and artistic ambition.
This year, six postgraduate artists have been selected for their bold and thoughtful contributions to the 2025 Goldsmiths Degree Shows.
From moving image to live performance, sculpture to site-based installation, their practices speak to some of the most urgent and intimate questions of our time — including ecology, memory, power, grief, and identity.
Whether working with sound, performance, sculpture or film, each of this year’s winners brought a distinct voice and vision to the show, interrogating urgent questions while holding space for ambiguity, beauty, and personal truth.
“There was such precision and skill across every medium — and the thoughtfulness in how each artist approached complex themes stayed with me. These were works I wanted to spend time with, to return to. It was a real privilege to experience them.” - Professor Frances Corner OBE, Vice-Chancellor.
Professor Frances Corner OBE, Vice-Chancellor
2025 Vice-Chancellor’s Art Prize postgraduate winners
MA Art and Ecology
Jayson Fowler – for reimagining our relationship to the environment through an ecological and trans lens. ‘Shitting in the Woods’ is precise, political, and quietly powerful, and invites viewers to sit with the complexity of survival and change.
MA Artists’ Film & Moving Image
Inigo Roberts – for a haunting film work that moved between cinematic narrative and abstract moving image, and a striking interplay between grief, memory, and disconnection was striking. the piece felt emotionally layered, formally considered, and atmospherically rich.
MFA Fine Art
George Wigley – for sculptural works that transform everyday objects into handmade, human-scale systems. Through repetition, material labour, and a touch of absurdity, his pieces reflect on function, breakdown, and the rituals of daily life invite the viewer to consider how meaning is made and remade in the context of late capitalism.
Coco Guo – for ‘The Red Shoes’, a visually bold performance piece that combined movement, costume, and narrative into a compelling and unsettling reflection on power, transformation, and the roles we are asked to play.
Taliesin Gilkes-Bower – for ‘Wrong Earth’, an epic, parafictional installation that wove together ritual, myth, and technospiritual energy. The scale and ambition of the work was remarkable — it left a lasting impression with its inventiveness and depth.
Graduate Diploma in Art
Yuchen Jiang – for an installation that explores the body as a site of transformation and circulation. Combining skins, copper wire, and wood with conceptual references to digestive systems and brass musical instruments, the work reflects a shift in Yuchen’s practice towards experimentation, play, and material openness — balancing intricacy with spaciousness.
Jayson Fowler
Inigo Roberts
George Wigley
Coco Guo
Taliesin Gilkes-Bower
Yuchen Jiang
The Vice-Chancellor also thanked the course leaders and staff who guided her through the shows, highlighting their insight, care, and commitment to each student’s practice.
“You could feel the conversations behind the work — the moments of breakthrough, the hesitation, the thought. The kind of mentorship is that makes Goldsmiths such a special place to study and create,” said Professor Corner.
When my tutor Elle told me I had won the Vice-Chancellor’s Art Prize, I was first surprised and then absolutely delighted. This year has flown by, but I’ve gained so much — real hands-on experience and a sense of growth that feels substantial."
Yuchen Jiang, Graduate Diploma in Art
Reflecting on her time at Goldsmiths and her work, Yuchen continued:
"I’m also grateful to Joseph, my personal tutor, who encouraged me to move beyond oil painting. That shift helped me realise I’d been placing limits on myself. Now I’m having fun, feeling relaxed, and exploring new forms.
My new piece is inspired by the curious similarity between brass instruments and a rabbit’s digestive system — both are systems of transformation and reuse. I’m exploring the body as an alchemical vessel full of potential.”
Bold ideas - shaping the future of art, design and culture
Goldsmiths' degree shows reveal the bold ideas, questions, and craft shaping the future of art, design and culture. This postgraduate exhibition is just one part of a vibrant summer of work.
Explore the full listings to see the breadth of creativity across our departments.
Visit the Art Degree Shows page to learn more and view the full catalogue.
See the full listings of the Goldsmiths Summer Degree Shows.
