Contemporary Art Practice (MA)

Dear Adri, Alice, Amanda, Bea, Ben, Chloe, Deividas, Elise, Flo, Friederike, Gaby, Hanna, Haoqi, Heyse, Ignacio, Ionian, Jennifer, Jeremy, Jooyeon, Josh, Julie, JungEun, Kami, Kangni, Karen, Laura, Lian, Loretta, Loui, Meghan, Najah, Eden, Patricia, Putri, Qianqian, RGM, Sara, Sarra, Scott, Weining, xiaoyu1002, Zein, Ziqi, and Ziyi… aka the outstanding CAP Graduates of 2022:

You applied to join us in the depths of lockdown and at a time when we were not sure how the current state of things would progress. Even then, you were imagining something different might be possible. During our first term together, we got to know you as framed faces on a gridded screen. Together our vocabulary expanded to include frontloading, burst modes and Hybrid Realities. We moved to Kensington, wore wristbands, moved back to Battersea, made contact with white tables, technologies and the abyss.

You were the first to inhabit our new home, the CAP studios on level 2 in Battersea South and this was an amazing thing to witness. We had looked at floorplans, whilst watching the tessellated bricks rise from the other side of Howie Street and finally, we were in there, all together as a programme for the first time since CAP was born. Within 24 hours of moving in you had transformed the space and everyone who visited commented how it really ‘felt like an art school’ in there, and so it should. Studios were cleared to make way for the installation of your exhibition, exams were sat, tweaks were made and now we find ourselves here. Now is the time of Show.

CAP Graduates of 2022, you have shown us many things during your time at the RCA. You have shown us what can happen when artists come together as a collective to respond to urgent social, political, environmental issues. You have shown us what it means to care for others. You have continued to interrogate what it means to be a contemporary art practitioner and as is evident through your artist pages here and your degree show in Battersea, you have done so through incredibly diverse forms and modes of expression: from sculptures in clay, plaster and concrete, to gaming and gold plating, from oil paints to pole dancing, from CGI to self-portraiture, from dog pee, to condoms, to metal hooks and glass, to woven sculptures, owls, horses, hearts, and wrestlers, from tents to texts, to clocks and an unidentified furry cyclops. You have shown us all these things, dear Graduates, and as we look up to see your name in the sky above, we really can’t wait to see what you will continue to show us in the future.

With all our best wishes from Chantal and Andy, Anne, Aura, Eleanor, George, Hannah, Harold, Jess, Jordan, Juliet, Mel, Pil, Sally and Tai

Professor Chantal Faust, Head of Contemporary Art Practice

⭐️

Please join us on Thursday 30 June at 14:00 (GMT+1) in the CAP Show Space on the 2nd floor in Battersea South for 'Now Is The Time of Monsters': a critical discussion organised by the students of MA Contemporary Art Practice.

Instagram: @rca_contemporaryartpractice

Study Contemporary Art Practice at the RCA: rca.ac.uk/study/programme-finder/contemporary-art-practice-ma/

CAP Images by Sarra Grillo-Henry & Heyse Ip