OVERVIEW

The Royal College of Art Contemporary Art Summer School follows the RCA postgraduate teaching model, focused on studio-based learning. The course is designed for visual art students and young emerging artists who wish to develop their personal and professional fine-art practice in a world-leading environment.

The two-week intensive studio-based course will expand individual art practices and knowledge through one-to-one tutorials, workshops, lectures, film screenings and access to the extensive RCA library. Furthermore, this course will examine the rich array of positions, methods and materials that artists use, as well as explore questions raised by contemporary art and its production.

Students will have their own studio space in Royal College of Art to develop their work, receive supervision feedback, and practical advice from RCA tutors and experts in contemporary art. This course is taught entirely by RCA staff and supported by a broad range of prominent artists, academics, critics, and curators. The course provides participants with the opportunity to develop their practice within an interdisciplinary, collaborative atmosphere and meet artists from all over the world.

At the end of this course, students will exhibit their work in a group exhibition at the Royal College of Art in London. Students who complete the course will receive a certificate of completion from the Royal College of Art.
GroupPhoto

COURSE CONTENT

IMG_20190722_122347

Academic Lectures

Thought provoking lectures that examine key aspects of contemporary art from different perspectives.
RCA_workshop

Various Art Workshops

Interactive workshops to further hone, inspire, and develop new skills.
Studio8

Studio Creation

Studio creation in the world-leading environment and receive supervision feedback and advice.
SurgeryTutorial

Surgical Tutorials

One-on-one tutorials with course tutors to specifically look at each individual’s work, development, and critical thinking.
IMG_20190731_105723

Museums Visits

Guided visits to the world-renowned art museums and galleries in London that are especially selected to fit the course theme.
IMG_20190724_140539

Film Screening

Film screening and discussions, a chance to explore more interdisciplinary topics.
GroupCritique 1

Group Reflection

Group discussions and reflections focused on depth of analysis and critical studies.
IMG_20190802_135706

Group Critiques

Group critiques to both challenge, support, and promote the growth of individuals’ works.
IMG_20190802_180914

Final Exhibition

End-of-course group exhibition at the RCA provide great exposure opportunity for participants’ work.

Guiding Questions

  • How to start thinking about different practice methods and how to locate ideas in the contemporary context?
  • What are the possibilities and boundaries of different modes of practice?
  • How do Western artists work inside the studio now and how does this affect the work they make?

Themed Art Workshops

  • Different Approaches to Art Practice
  • Performance Art Workshop
  • Song/Spoken Text/Word Workshop
  • Group Reading Workshop

Other Activities

  • Surgical Tutorial
  • Final Art Exhibition
  • Tate Modern Special Exhibition Visit
  • National Gallery Visit
  • Film Screening
  • Group Critiques
IMG_20190723_130427
IMG_20190725_144210
IMG_20190729_151426

TUTORS

Kein
Professor Ken Neil
Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities of the Royal College of Art. He has held senior academic posts at The Glasgow School of Art since 2006 and has been Deputy Director (Academic) since 2016. Ken has written about contemporary art and theory within the context of education and institutionalisation for a wide range of publications and journals and is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Visual Art Practice. With a distinguished background in academic excellence, Ken has over two decades of teaching experience following his own studies in painting and the history and philosophy of art at Edinburgh University as an undergraduate, before achieving an MFA in painting from Edinburgh College of Art in 1995. He completed a PhD in art theory in 2003 while teaching Humanities and History of Art at ECA and the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
rebecca
Professor Rebecca Fortnum
Artist and academic Professor Rebecca Fortnum is Senior Tutor for Research in the School of Arts & Humanitites at the Royal College of Art. Fortnum oversees all aspects of staff research in the School of Fine Art, as well as strategic planning, grant submission and the supervision of Fine Art MRes, MPhil and PhD students.
In 2018–2019 Fortnum is Visiting Research Fellow in the Creative Arts at Merton College, Oxford University. 
Fortnum has received awards from organisations including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, British Council, Arts Council of England, British School in Rome, AHRC, the Art House’s Space for 10 award for mid-career artists, and the METHOD Cultural Leadership Programme. 
Jo
Professor Jo Stockham
Jo Stockham has been Professor and Head of the Printmaking programme of RCA since 2008. She began working at the Royal College of Art in 1993 as a Visiting Lecturer in Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking. 
Over the past 20 years, her studio practice was supported by running workshops for the Whitechapel Gallery, Tate, Camden Arts Centre and part-time teaching. 
Jo Stockham has undertaken many residences, including a Henry Moore Fellowship at Kettle’s Yard, Artist in Residence at Warwick University and a Yaddo Fellowship in New York. Commissions have included a permanent installation for Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (in collaboration with Darrell Viner).
johnny
Professor Johnny Golding
Johnny Golding is Professor of Philosophy & Fine Art, and Senior Tutor: Research in the School of Arts & Humanities, Royal College of Art. Golding’s work situates post-Newtonian analytics, new materialisms and the erotics of sense as ‘radical matter’, a practice-led encounter with contemporary philosophy, art and the wild sciences. 
Professor Johnny Golding leads the postgraduate research group Entanglement (with artist Emma Talbot) and the MA School group Radical Matter. Resituating the multiversal as a particular form of dimensional and superpositional encounter, Golding’s epistemological moves foreground artificial intelligences, meta-mathematics, modern physics and the logics of sense. 
chantel
Dr Chantel Faust
Dr Chantal Faust is an artist, writer and Senior Tutor at the Royal College of Art. Faust is the Critical & Historical Studies (CHS) Senior Liaison Tutor for the School of Arts & Humanities, overseeing the delivery of CHS for the School; Senior Research Tutor in SoAH, leading the Absurdity Research Group and supervising MPhil and PhD students; and Editor-in-Chief of PROVA, the annual RCA SoAH Research Journal.
Dr Faust’s photographic, painting, video and installation works have been exhibited in the UK, Australia and North America. Faust has contributed book chapters to contemporary art publications, and regularly writes for academic journals, magazines, and exhibition catalogues.  
emma
Emma Talbot
Senior Tutor in Painting (Research) in the School of Arts and Humanities at the Royal College of Art. An artist and academic based in London, she is represented by galleries in Düsseldorf, Amsterdam and Basel and works closely with Arcadia Missa London/NYC.
Her work has recently been featured and reviewed in Kunstforum, Frieze, Flash Art and by Rudi Fuchs in De Groene Amsterdammer. Her work is included in museum and major collections such as Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery,UK, KRC Collection NL, Museum of Arnhem, NL, Fries Museum, NL, David Roberts Collection, UK, AGWA Australia, Wilhelm Schürmann Collection, D.
GC_Portriate.width-300
Dr Gary Clough
Gary Clough is the Senior Tutor for the Graduate Diploma in Art & Design, based at the White City Campus. 
Gary has over 25 years’ experience in the higher education sector, with a specialist focus in international and transnational education. He has taught at art and design specialist universities nationally and internationally, developing a range of courses, progression routes and transnational education programmes in countries including China, Japan and Korea. He is responsible for the implementation, organisation, management, development and course delivery across the programme.
whiskey Chow
Whiskey Chow
London-based performance artist. Her art practice engages with broadly defined political issues, covering a range of related topics: from female and queer masculinity, problematising the nation-state across geographic boundaries, to stereotypical projections of Chinese/Asian identity.
Whiskey has been invited to practice performances include Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Liverpool Biennial Fringe, Liverpool.
Whiskey has also given artist talk and has participated in panels in higher education institutions in the UK, including Royal College of Art, University of Oxford, Goldsmiths, Sotheby's Institute of Art, University of London, University of Westminster and University of Nottingham.
paris1
Janette Paris
Parris is a contemporary artist who uses the everyday as the basis for much of her work. She works across different media including: drawing, animation, and performance (musical and theatre). She creates strongly narrative work, often in the form of comic strips to capture the humorous essence of life, while reflecting a dry and self-effacing look at the world. Janette Parris' work has been exhibited across the UK and internationally, and in 2003, she was commissioned to produce a series of works for the ‘Art on the Underground’ programme by London Underground. In 2010, Parris’s animated video Talent was shown at Tate Britain’s Rude Britannia exhibition. In 2014 Parris was a Connect10 artist for Museums At Night 2014. In 2014 her online comic Arch was exhibited in Comics Unmasked the largest comic exhibition in the UK at the British Library. 
Participants' Feedback
In this two-week course, I learned a lot about creative methods. I felt that my creative ideas were suddenly opened. I tried art forms that I’ve never tried before, met participants with different arts and design backgrounds, and a lot of inspiration followed.

Joanna Zhao
student at Nanjing University of the Arts
This course provided me an opportunity to reassess my practice and find new avenues of working. Having worked professionally for a number of years, I felt stuck on a certain methodology, and this course allowed me the time and support to break down those constructs and really develop my voice as an artist."

Anna Masters
Artist
The whole course design of RCA Summer School is very meaningful, especially the guidance of many tutors is incredibly valuable, it can help us break through our own limitations, and also receive effective suggestions for and address our individual problems, while empowering us with full creative freedom.                         
  
Yutong Cai
student at the Chinese Academy of Art
I had a very fulfilling two weeks. What I’m most grateful for is that this summer school has brought more possibilities for my future professional development. I think this experience is very precious to me and I will always remember it. 

Yilin Lin
student at China Academy of Art

The RCA Contemporary Art Summer School was an unparalleled opportunity to produce work in outstanding studio conditions with world-class tutelage.

Gillian Moore
student at Chicago University


A tremendously beneficial experience: beyond my expectations.

Anastasios Veloudis
Visual Artist

Programme Highlights
1  2  3 
836d0d5f1f4e30139c8b11b2c6e2243b
9ff77c404c51258e90a5d95a2bf5a92c-e1568039196372
8c289b1bf054fc6c4049f300d5133ab9
b09e5dc33fd0446a2f88142ac348b7de
38f1a34a87d747946334df47d70489b4
aa9a06cb8c4a48b2f32c0b35a4bdb8fb
课程特色1
IMG_20190729_151019
IMG_20190729_180621
IMG_20190723_130427
IMG_20190726_123326
IMG_20190801_112711
Studio6
Studio8
IMG_20190725_144210
IMG_20190730_184129
DSC04219
IMG_20190729_122502