UWE Bristol art and design students explore diverse global issues at MA Degree Show

UWE Bristol’s Showcase: MA Degree Show returns to Spike Island next month, featuring the extraordinary artwork of around 50 graduating students from the MA Fine Art, MA Graphic Arts, and MA Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking programmes.

The free exhibition starts with an open evening on 5 September and runs until 11 September, offering the public an opportunity to enjoy ambitious and innovative designs from the next generation of creative talent.  

Marking the culmination of their postgraduate studies, the MA Degree Show features art and design work inspired by a variety of themes including nature, sustainability, motherhood, cultural identity and family.

Some of the students exhibiting are:

Woon Bing Chang – MA Graphic Arts

Woon Bing Chang is an MA Graphic Arts student from Malaysia. Chang’s final project, created in collaboration with the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC), reflects his passion for wildlife and environmental storytelling.

“I’m interested in using pictures to tell stories, particularly stories involving animals and nature, and how they help us make sense of our place in the universe,” said Woon Bing. His final project for his MA features visitor information for the BSBCC, including warning signs incorporating humour and narrative elements, interactive educational displays about sun bears’ ecological roles, and a large-scale display on Borneo rainforests and climate change.

Chang’s journey illustrates the diverse experiences of UWE Bristol’s postgraduate students. After completing his BA in Graphic Design with Animation at UWE Bristol in 2009, he worked in an international visual effects studio, contributing to films like ‘Life of Pi’, as well as lecturing in illustration, before returning to complete his MA.

Image: 'Warning Signs' by Woon Bing Chang

Akshu Patel – MA Graphic Arts

Studying MA Graphic Arts is Akshu Patel, an Architecture graduate who then joined the MA Graphic Arts programme at UWE Bristol to develop his design skills. His work explores the second-generation immigrant experience in London.

He said: “I have a great passion for graphic design, illustration, model making, and clothing design. At the MA Degree Show visitors will be able to see clothing I have designed featuring quotes from myself, my brother, and my sister-in-law obtained from interviews, conveying our second-generation immigrant experiences.”

Akshu’s work embodies past, present, and future narratives related to six core themes:

• The challenging immigration stories of first-generation immigrant parents
• The ways cultural identities are defined and discussed
• The challenges associated with being second-generation immigrants
• The positives and opportunities that come with this experience
• How different cultures are balanced and navigated
• The vision for the future evolution of cultural identities and aspirations for potential children

The quotes blend Bollywood-inspired Gujarati dialect and graffiti-style English typography. They visually depict whether they are negative, positive, or neutral by using colour and design arrangement. Furthermore, embroidered patches inspired by Indian matchboxes visualise these quotes and are sewn onto the garments.

Image: Some of the garments designed by Akshu Patel

Brie Barnacle – MA Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking

Brie Barnacle is an experimental printmaker and, in line with her values of nurture, care and sustainability, she repurposes old etching plates using a plasma cutter and welding machine to transform them into new work. She was recently awarded Greener Futures Green Leader of the Year at the Students’ Union Society Awards.

“My practice starts with a love of the landscape expressed through walking with my family,” said Brie. “My desire to foster and preserve memories with my children is also mirrored in my desire to memorialise our diminishing natural world. Through my work, I draw parallels between my experiences of mothering and the landscape as a space of fragility, complexity and flux.”

Image: Examples of Brie Barnacle's prints 

Dili Pitt – MA Fine Art

Studying MA Fine Art after completing the undergraduate programme at UWE Bristol last year, is Dili Pitt. Her work ‘I Used to be a Prince’ is an evolving installation of sculpture and storytelling that consists of sculptures, found objects and text. 

She said: “The individual pieces come together and transform into performers, props, weapons, artifacts, villains, and heroes enacting a battle scene in a barren landscape. The finished installation is a surreal, dreamlike battle tableau that utilises fragments of mythology to delve into the impact of biases within stories and their connection to politics and conflicts.

“The viewer is presented with a multi-layered tale of historical legend, tragedy and defeat, of the taking of historical land through battle, of heroes and the class system. This dramatic scene is overlaid with the mundane, the broken pavement, the building site debris, woven in and around the story with its own message of private ownership, hereditary land rights, the laws of trespass and the right to a home.”

Image: 'I Used to be a Prince' by Dili Pitt 

The opening times for the MA Degree Show are:

Thursday 5 September 17:00 – 20:00 (open evening)
Friday 6 to Wednesday 11 September 12:00 – 17:00

No booking is required.

Meet the lecturers drop-in:

As part of the event, prospective students are invited to drop-in and meet the lecturers on Saturday 7 September, to find out more about the three postgraduate programmes (13:00 – 15:00). Booking is required for the drop-in session via this link.

Dr Will Grant, Associate Director of Postgraduate Taught Studies in UWE Bristol’s School of Arts, said: "We are incredibly proud of our students' achievements this year. The MA Degree Show features a diverse range of work that highlights the exceptional talent and creativity of these emerging artists. We are thrilled to welcome the wider Bristol community to celebrate their success."

The Showcase: MA Degree Show combines an exhibition at Spike Island, accompanied by a digital Showcase.