UAL’s Post-Grad Community supports a growing number of issue-specific, cross-disciplinary interest groups led by postgraduate students and academics.
PhD students have launched interest groups in the past to coincide with exhibitions and symposiums that they have organised under the same theme. Students have also used Interest Groups as a working group towards research or a standalone event or series.
Hear from the initiators of three thriving PhD student-led interest groups to understand how these originated and how the group has fuelled their research.
Want to start an Interest Group?
Download the Post-Grad Interest Group Set Up Guide (PDF 65KB)
Or get in touch with pgcommunity@arts.ac.uk
Post-Grad Interest Group Directory
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Credit: Image courtesy of UAL Image courtesy of UAL, Antarctica by Lucy Orta
Traces: Stories of Migration
Interrogate dialogues about a cross-disciplinary subject whilst addressing issues surrounding the act of migration.
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On Going Underground by the Hollow Chambers Team. Selected photographs of publications from the MCG Archive and Library. Photo: Silvia De Giorgi
DRAW
A pan UAL initiative which is focused on interdisciplinary approaches to drawing.
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'Streetstyle: from sidewalk to catwalk', a seminal fashion exhibition staged at the Victoria & Albert Museum in November 1994
Subcultures
What are the functions and meanings of subcultures historically and contemporarily?
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Post-Grad Interest Group: Body Representation
Body Representation
Interrogating various aspects of personal and societal issues of body representation.
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Fashion and ethnicity - Post-Grad Interest Group
Fashion and Ethnicity
Looking at how ethnicity intersects with practices of fashion in its broadest sense.
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Open Source Review
Creating dialogues that link theory with practice within a cross-disciplinary membership.
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Image courtesy of the Change Agents Post-Grad Interest Group.
Change Agents
A network for creative minds at UAL who have an active interest in designing for social change.
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PhD Tea and Chat
A place for PhD students to come together as a community, to socialise or to study and help each other through their PhD journey.
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‘Inert’ by Nicholas Galanin (2009)
Art and the More-than-Human
An opportunity to explore various discourses that relate to art, science and nature.
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Credit: Jon Martin
The Art of Questioning
What does it mean to have a method and how methodology of your PhD research be developed and brought to light?
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Credit: Lynda Beckett
Test Lab
Opportunity for PhD students to present papers on any aspect of their research in an informal and discursive setting.
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BLAME – Brown Leaders and Makers Exist
BLAME – Brown Leaders and Makers Exist
With the aim to 'make the brown feminist maker visible’.
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African-Caribbean, Asian and African Art in Britain Archive
Delve into the Archive and other Special Collections at Chelsea College of Arts Library.
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image credit: Billie Coxhead, CSM Materials Library
Materials Matter
A place to share ideas, projects, events, information and resources about materials. (CSM Materials Products Collection.)
Interest group stories
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Bracelets used for object analysis, PhD Candidate Anushka Tay (2020). Reporting back on ‘Fashion and Ethnicity’ Post-Grad Interest Group’s 2021 Meetups
Our regular group meetups provide a welcoming and open space to consider the meanings and ramifications of ethnicity in fashion and dress practices worldwide.
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Tailors in Bahrain. (TimeOut magazine, "Tailors in Bahrain", 2009) Language in fashion and sustainability
Reporting back on the 'Fashion and Ethnicity' Post-Grad Interest Group's recent interactive workshop called “Language in Fashion and Sustainability” led by Rawan Maki, PhD Candidate at LCF.
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Post-Grad Interest Group: Fashion & Ethnicity. mage credit: Kadian Gosler Fashioning My Black Body: Reflections through Autoethnography
Reporting back on the 'Fashion and Ethnicity' Post-Grad Interest Group's third session on the topic of ‘clothing and experience’, LCF PhD candidate Kadian Gosler presented work called ‘Fashioning My Black Body: Reflections through
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image credit: Billie Coxhead, CSM Materials Library Post-Grad Interest Group: Materials Matter
A place to share ideas, projects, events, information and resources about materials. Monthly online meet led initially by Billie Coxhead who co-ordinates the UAL Materials & Products Collections.