Bryony

“I had been looking to further expand on my interest in cultural theory and was uncertain if PR was really for me. This opportunity to study at Goldsmiths came along at just the right moment.

I was interested in the focus on production and organisational critique, and the fact that it brought together theory and practice in a meaningful way with the scope of the final projects.

Throughout the course I was constantly challenged in my thinking and forced to consider multiple angles by our tutors Matthew Fuller and Josie Berry Slater. The opportunity to attend seminars with Angela McRobbie hugely informed my thinking and illuminated the path for an intersectional radical feminist critique of the culture industries.

A particularly memorable moment was walking through the land that would become the Olympic park. Walking from Stratford to Mile End with cultural critic Anthony Iles completely upturned everything I thought I knew about the Olympics. It’s a walk I've taken many friends on since, a public footpath route that has become smaller and smaller as the Games preparation has progressed.

For my major project I spent a month at the office of a volunteer-run magazine based in San Francisco, mapping the knowledge exchange, working hierarchies and modes of production at play. This experience taught me the value of reflexivity when it came to any kind of ethnographical work.

The knowledge I gained from my MA has been absolutely invaluable to me in my current job. My position involves running a pilot programme that offers advice and loan funding to creative businesses. It's ultimately about balancing creativity and life under capitalism, the very same debate that struck at the heart of so much of what we debated on the MA course.

I am currently working on a community project to create an autonomous creative space in South London that will link up independent musicians and artists with learning disabled adults and other social groups that have trouble accessing the arts. My goal at the moment involves getting that off the ground with successful fundraising and grants, and creating a sustainable proposition for that space to exist on a permanent basis.

I would advise prospective students to be ready to think critically and look beyond your own world when it comes to what we mean by 'culture.'”