Submit your idea for a Lethaby Gallery exhibition

The Lethaby Gallery is inviting exhibition proposals from current Central Saint Martins students and graduates to curate and deliver an exhibition that will be hosted in the Gallery from 2 February – 20 March 2026.

This open call gives CSM students the chance to curate an exhibition that reflects what matters to our student/graduate community. Proposals must explore collaboration, either between individuals or disciplines, and cross-disciplinary proposals are strongly encouraged.

Your exhibition will strengthen your professional skills, engage diverse audiences and demonstrate sustainable practice – directly supporting UAL’s commitment to transformative education, access, innovation, global connection and environmental responsibility.

The successful proposal will receive:

• Mentoring and support from the Lethaby Gallery team
• Access to facilities and networks
• Production advice

How to submit a proposal

Please fill out the proposal form by 11.59pm on 31 October 2025.

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted to present their proposal to the Lethaby Gallery Advisory Group on Monday 10 November 2025.

Proposal Guidance

Please submit your completed Lethaby Gallery proposal form by Friday 31 October 2025.

All proposals must explore collaboration, between people and/or disciplines, and be from either current students or alumni from Central Saint Martins.

With support from the Lethaby Gallery team including mentoring, production advice and access to facilities and networks, your exhibition will strengthen your professional skills and engage diverse audiences beyond the gallery. It will explore how creativity addresses real-world issues, share global perspectives and demonstrate sustainable practice – directly supporting UAL's commitment to transformative education, access, innovation, global connection and environmental responsibility.

Our approach

Your proposal should connect with the principles that shape our curatorial approach at CSM. Think about how your exhibition:

• Addresses shared conditions – engaging with urgent societal or planetary challenges that cross boundaries of place, practice and discipline, and speaks to issues affecting multiple communities.
• Seeks common ground – fostering collaboration, dialogue or participation across different groups, demonstrating shared ownership or co-creation in how the work comes together.
• Absorbs the whole life of the College as material – drawing on diverse experiences and perspectives from across CSM, reflecting the full breadth of our community and culture.
• Brings practice to every space – extending creative practice beyond the studio or classroom into unexpected contexts, inviting audiences to participate and engage in new ways.
• Deepens external connections – building meaningful relationships with communities beyond the College and has the potential to reach new or diverse audiences.

Exhibition timeline

Open call closes: 31 October 2025
Advisory Group meeting: 5 November 2025
Open call outcome: 7 November 2025
Shortlisted proposal presentations: 10 November 2025
Install: 9-13 February 2026 (5 days)
Opening dates: 18 February – 3 May 2026
De-install: 4-8 May 2026 (5 days)

Producing a carbon impact plan for your exhibition

When producing your carbon impact plan, please consider different display systems that are already in the College, ways that you might produce signage that reduce carbon impact and avoid loans from international lenders.

The Design Museum with URGE Collective have produced a useful tool to pre-empt the carbon impact of exhibitions. This tool can be used to structure your answer in the ‘Carbon Impact’ section of the form. If you use the carbon impact tool, make sure to save it as a ‘copy’ to avoid your information being publicly available.

Additional reading and resources

• ‘Carbon Auditing our exhibitions at the Lethaby Gallery’, 10 June 2023
• ‘Strategies for Reducing the Carbon Impact of Temporary and Touring Exhibitions in the Museum and Galleries Sector’ Design Museum & URGE Collective (2023)
• Julie’s Bicycle Climate Tools

Assessment of proposals

The Lethaby Gallery has a commitment to uphold CSM’s principles which are outlined in the proposal form. You will be asked how your proposal reflects these principles, to keep it in line with CSM’s curatorial approach.

Your proposal will be assessed by the Lethaby Gallery Advisory Group who will assess your form responses against a matrix that is written using the CSM Principles.

Other criteria that the group will use is:

• curatorial innovation
• feasibility
• interdisciplinarity

We will shortlist 5 proposals from the selection we receive. If shortlisted, you will be invited to present your proposal to the Lethaby Gallery Advisory Group. At that point, we would ask you to further develop your proposal to include:

• A project timeline
• A refined curatorial narrative
• CVs or blurbs for each member of the curatorial group
• A selection of visual references for your exhibition proposal

1-2-1 Proposal surgery

The Creative Producer for the Lethaby Gallery will be running drop-in proposal sessions where you can discuss your ideas:

The Street

Monday 27 Oct, 11am-1pm
Tuesday 28 Oct, 11am-1pm

Lethaby Gallery, CSM

Wednesday 29 Oct, 2-4pm
Thursday 30 Oct, 11am-1pm