An array of inspired creations from more than 550 Edinburgh College of Art students are on show at the highly-anticipated Graduate Show 2024. Thousands of striking pieces of work – which explore new possibilities for the subject areas of Art, Design, Music and Architecture & Landscape Architecture – will be showcased from Friday 31 May to Sunday 9 June. [scald=177623:sdl_editor_representation {"alt":"montage of graduate show artworks","caption":""}] Visual feast The visual feast includes a dramatic assembly of giant red circular sculptures, an eye-catching towering palm tree and a playful fusion of puppetry and fairytales. The ten-day exhibition is taking place at the Main Building of Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) at Lauriston Place. The Graduate Show website will also share the students’ artworks and portfolios, with more than 6000 works on the online hub on display for a global audience. Book your Graduate Show ticket now The ECA Graduate Show 2024 will be open Friday 31 May to Sunday 9 June, 10am - 5pm. With late night opening until 8pm on Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6 June. Entry to the Graduate Show is free. Booking is essential to allow for managing the capacity of the building. Visitors can book three-hour time slots across the morning, afternoon and evening. There will be a pop-up shop at the venue offering prints of some of the works, postcards, miniature sculptures and more. Book your ticket Emerging talent The annual event showcases emerging arts and design talent and offers the public a window into ECA’s culture of celebrating and cultivating students’ creativity, design and technical skills. This year’s portfolios draw on a range of influences and themes, including solutions for sustainable design, ideas for a changing world, and visual explorations of human feeling and emotion. The Show reflects the spectrum of training in creative disciplines on offer across ECA, including painting and drawing, sculpture and installation, architectural planning and modelling, animation and digital visualisation, musical composition and performance, film, photography, textiles, jewellery and interior design. This Show is the crescendo of our academic year when the College shares and celebrates our students and the College community. The variety and quality of work demonstrates the essential role creative perspectives can offer our world and communities. The students have really excelled with their creative work and ideas, which make for a wonderful exhibition. Professor Juan CruzPrincipal of ECA The dazzling exhibits include Sawdust in my eye, an installation of four giant red circles by Justine Watt; There is Possibility Under the Palm, a dramatic tree installation by Fiona Goss, and Pomegranate Pasta, My Love by Amanda Cathy Bullock, an interactive display on puppetry and fairytales Works to look out for from the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA) include Xinyi Liu’s reimagining of an industrial dockland as a forest, which explores how an urban landscape can be rehabilitated to improve the lives of the community. Devon Tabata’s architecture project experiments with low-carbon sandstone, as he seeks to integrate buildings for a new public space in Leith that will reflect the area’s theatricality. Fina Gill’s Interior Design project ‘Social Net’ addresses increased rates of loneliness among young adults, by reimagining the Dalmeny Street Drill Hall as a community centre based around people’s shared interests and hobbies. Creative works In Landscape Architecture Jenny Wang’s work imagines the creation of The Highland Land Exhibition Centre to reconnect local residents with the land along the Highland Boundary Fault. In the School of Art, Alice Wheeler’s photography portfolio of figures emerging from darkness is inspired by the dramatic lighting of Italian churches and the hues of stained glass. A sculpture project by Fiona Goss investigates nature and human ecosystems. The artist incorporates real environments through creating art on location or gathering material from a place to later transform via sculpture. In the School of Design, Effie Peters short animation film Adult Teeth, which is built around interviews with childhood friends talking about growing up in a small rural town, explores nostalgia and how memories can distort over time. In Graphic Design, Holly Stephens’ project showcases her work as a set designer for the Edinburgh University Footlights’ production of Guys and Dolls. The work includes 32 laser cut signs which were suspended from stage lighting rigs to set the scene for the stage adaptation of the classic 1940s film. Seth Statham’s illustration project, The Fossils on Mars, examines a theory of evolution by incorporating the themes of astrobiology and palaeontology, including dramatic sculptures of fossils with mathematical scaling. In Jewellery and Silversmithing, Cadence Yang’s project explores the expressive Nuo masks of China. The designs adapt the mask’s ornate patterns to give these rich cultural artefacts a contemporary twist. The Norse goddess of death, Hel, is the inspiration for Joanna Huang’s Performance Costume creations. Huang’s modern take on Viking dress is paired with large deer headdress, creating an eerie and frail half-human character. Cutting-edge wearable electronics merges with style in Iana Nikolova’s environmentally-minded product design. The device, called aq, pulsates gently indicating the air quality in the area, allowing the wearer to navigate towards less-polluted routes. In Textiles Hâf Thompson’s portfolio is influenced by reductivism logic, always removing and never adding to her work. The result is a series of increasingly opaque textile panels. In the Reid School of Music, Billy McCluskie’s composition Ugly Music For Sad People riffs on the grieving process and mental health through music. Key events during the Graduate Show The ECA Graduate Show 2024 will be open Friday 31 May to Sunday 9 June, 10am to 5pm, with late night opening until 8pm on Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6 June. As well as hosting a captivating array of exhibits at ECA’s Main Building, the Graduate Show also features a series of events, including screenings, concerts and live performances. A live music concert at the historic Reid Concert Hall will air works by graduating students from the School of Music on Wednesday, 5 June. The Wee Red bar, part of the Lauriston Campus, will also be hosting a gig from the music students on Thursday 6 June. Dazzling designs from ECA fashion students will grace the runway at two catwalk shows at the National Museum of Scotland on Friday 7 June. The mesmerising ECA Fashions Shows – tickets for which are available to buy via Eventbrite – will showcase commercial fashion and boundary-pushing outfits. An ECA Undergraduate Open Day on Monday 3 June will offer prospective students a programme of talks and tours, and the opportunity to see ECA during the Graduate Show. ECA events Edinburgh College of Art Graduate Show website Graduate show tickets Publication date 30 May, 2024
