Call for applications: Graduate Diploma in Art

Priority application deadline: February 14, 2025

Goldsmiths is pleased to announce that the Graduate Diploma in Art (now in its fourth year) is accepting applications for September 2025 entry. This innovative, twelve-month, studio-based postgraduate programme is designed for graduates with interests and experiences in creative approaches, interdisciplinary backgrounds, self-taught art practices, or those trained in other areas who wish to acquire skills within a fine art context. The programme offers a point of entry for those who intend to study at postgraduate level but do not possess traditional academic qualifications, as well as for students looking to further develop a body of work after undergraduate study or for international students seeking to improve their English language skills.

We currently have several members in our Graduate Diploma in Art community who have studied in alternative art school programmes, as well as those whose work draws upon activism, philosophy, eco-systems, or emerging technologies. We welcome creative practices engaging with drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, installation, performance, art writing, curation, textiles, fashion, photography, sound, digital media and video, along with poetry, spoken word, history of art and theory. The Department’s specialist Art Practice Areas will provide support for a wide variety of processes that complement and extend traditional disciplines. See here.

The Graduate Diploma in Art offers new access routes to Goldsmiths MFA Fine Art, MA Art and Ecology, MA Artists‘ Film and Moving Image and MFA Curating. Successful completion of the Graduate Diploma in Art will provide you entry onto one of these four Goldsmiths postgraduate programmes. Throughout the year, there are opportunities to study alongside postgraduate students, spending time in their studios, seminars, and critical studies spaces. This integration process brings you into the studio-based postgraduate community within the Department of Art. The programme will support your development of a critical understanding of your own practice, as well as the contemporary artistic, academic, social, and political contexts in which it exists. The Graduate Diploma in Art shares a specialised programme of critical studies lectures and seminars that includes access to the postgraduate taught lecture programme. Studio practice is taught through an intensive programme of individual tutorials, collective forums and research visits. Additionally, the Graduate Diploma in Art provides an exceptional opportunity for you to learn skills, acquire knowledge and build networks that will be essential to propelling your professional artistic practice through development of an Artists’ Text Portfolio for MFA and beyond. We like to work through collective learning, co creating the educational environment through collaboration and peer-to-peer engagement, with participants bringing a strong sense of community and the ability to work effectively in groups.

The programme’s location in South East London, with proximity to some of the world’s leading artistic and scientific institutions, also provides an opportunity for you to explore the city and encounter London in new and directed ways.  Visits are arranged to specialist research spaces as well as a wide range of artist-run initiatives and exhibitions.

Students are supported by the Programme Leader Elle Reynolds, Senior Tutor Dr Joseph Noonan- Ganley and independent curator Dr Kirsten Cooke, as well as a Junior Fellow and academic visitors and artist practitioners in the field. We have an exciting external programme which includes ongoing collaborations with curators, galleries and performance spaces. The programme teaches professional skills through visits, talks and workshops led by practitioners that provide real-world insights into the kinds of innovations, negotiations and knowledge necessary to realising a successful art practice. Established visiting artists and curators include: Tyler Coburn, Emma Edmondson, Gary Farelly, Peter Gomes, Warren Harper, Onyeka Igwe, Elsa James, Liz Murray, Kyung Hwa Shon.

Application: For more information on the programme and how to apply online, please visit the Goldsmiths website. Please register for an Open Day, or write to Elle Reynolds e.reynolds [​at​] gold.ac.uk if you would like to discuss your application.