This Christmas, the RCA will be the perfect place to shop as it opens its first Christmas Fête selling a range of affordable, beautiful and unique art and design pieces by students and graduates.  Items start from as little as £2 and range from a tongue-in-cheek nativity set; kitsch chimpanzee pin-cushions; a flat-pack wooden birdhouse; a folding cardboard desk light and tea-cup jewellery. This is a fantastic opportunity to pick up original Christmas gifts as well as helping to support up and coming creative student talent. The Fête will be located in a marquee on Jay Mews and will also feature a pop up café serving festive sweet treats, hot chocolate and mulled juice.

Open: Thursday 12pm –7pm, Friday, 12pm – 8pm
Saturday 8th & Sunday 9th, 12pm – 5 pm
Further information: rcachristmasfete.tumblr.com

This is the third in a series of Curatorial Dialogues organised by the Goethe-Institut and the Curating Contemporary Art department. Curator Barbara Steiner will be in conversation with Mark Nash from the RCA Curating Contemporary Art programme. Until 2011 Steiner was Curator and Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig. Her interests focus on the politics of representation, institutional critique, architecture and display, and economic criticality in the field of art and museums.

7pm, Lecture Theatre 1. Lectures are free but please book by calling: 020 7956 4000 or email info@london.goethe.org

The third lecture in this series supported by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund is by Belfast artist Willie Doherty. Twice nominated for the Turner Prize, his photographs and video installations are often rooted in the political context of Northern Ireland exploring the complexities of living in a divided community subjected to fear and uncertainty. 


6.30pm, Free admission, places are limited so early arrival is advised.

Join us for the second in the Architecture& series and explore the future of our planet with the author of Living Architecture, Rachel Armstrong, a leading promoter of ‘living’ building materials that could revolutionise how architecture and cities are built. To book tickets visit www.vam.ac.uk

7pm, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Lydia & Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre

To celebrate the first year of the new MA Interior Design, the programme has organised a series of public lectures by eminent architects, designers and critics to discuss, dissect and evaluate the role of the interior. A pioneer in his field Jason Bruges and his studio produce innovative art installations, interventions and groundbreaking work. Recent projects include the Aerial Dynamics lighting installation within Pernilla and Asif’s Coca-Cola Beatbox pavilion in the Olympic Park. Focusing on the interior, Bruges will provide an insight into the ideas behind the innovative and engaging spaces his studio produces.

6.30pm, Lecture Theatre 1. Lectures are free but please book by emailing: interior-design@rca.ac.uk.

An opportunity to view work by second year MA students from the Ceramics and Glass programme at a pivotal point in their development. The work will cover a wide spectrum – from design for manufacture to the unique art object and installation. Themes being dealt with range from the body, the domestic and the architectural. Free admission. For more information visit: www.greatwesternstudios.com.

Great Western Studios, 65 Alfred Road, London W2 5EU
Open Monday – Friday, 9am – 6pm. (Weekends by appointment).

This new public lecture series, supported by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund is entitled Current Modes of Artistic Production. It aims to give an insight into all aspects of artistic production through in-depth focus on a specific project by an invited artist. The second lecture in this series is by Lucy Orta, artist and professor of Art, Fashion and the Environment at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. Her installations sit in between art, fashion, architecture confronting environmental issues, including water pollution, global warming and population control.

6.30pm, Free admission, places are limited so early arrival is advised.

Accompanying The Shadow of Language conference and as part of The Fourth Guangzhou Triennial, this exhibition by four Chinese artists; Gao Shiqiang, Lu Yang, Wang Yuyang and Xiao Yu explores the complexity of ways of seeing, blindness and envisaging, through sculpture and moving image installations.
Open Monday – Friday, 12 noon – 5pm

The Shadow of Language brings together thinkers and artists from the UK and China. The conference aims to discuss the rich relations between the verbal and the visual, with particular reference to the still and the moving image. It will provide a research context for a reflection upon the persistence and the necessity of shadows in art and in language. It seeks to call into question the demands for clarity, efficiency and instrumentality that produce a shadowless world

Price: £25 per day

Click here for more information and booking.

The accompanying exhibition, The Unseen, an off-site project of the Fourth Guangzhou Triennial curated by Jiang Jiehong, BIAD in association with Image and Language Research, RCA, is open weekdays 12 midday to 5pm, 21 November to 7 December 2012.

The first of a series of talks by SustainRCA, a College initiative which aims to inspire, encourage and support sustainable thinking across the RCA. The idea that human excreta is waste arose out of the development of modern Western culture, yet since ancient times, it’s been used across the world to fertilise land and feed animals. The future shortage of mined nutrients, however, is forcing a rethink of how in line with circular thinking, waste can in fact equal resource. Join us as we meet three specialists making it their business as they explore the cultural, social and environmental implications.
6.30pm, Free admission, Lecture Theatre 1

The RCA's annual Architecture Lecture Series will be moving to the Victoria and Albert Museum this year. Architecture & Urbanism is the first in a series of five lectures which will explore the forces that shape London. Peter Wynne Rees, the City Planning Officer and Liza Fior from muf, and an expert in regeneration who worked on the 2012 Olympic Park lead the first evening talk. To book tickets visit www.vam.ac.uk

7pm, Victoria and Albert Museum, Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre.

To celebrate the start of the new MA in Interior Design at the RCA, Head of Programme Ab Rogers will deliver the first lecture in a major public talk series titled Talking Interiors in which the role of the interior will be dissected, evaluated and discussed.

Free admission, places are limited so early arrival is advised.
6.30pm, Lecture Theatre One, RCA Kensington

In Tandem at the Soane takes the creative talent of students and alumni from the Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery programme, and translates their artistic responses to Soane’s eccentric house and collections into jewellery for sale in the newly designed Soane Shop. The designer-makers have developed a range of jewellery, giving visitors to the Museum the opportunity to see, and buy, the best work from tomorrow’s designers, inspired by one of London’s oldest and most loved museums. In Tandem is a series of curated events by GSM&J which aims to keep graduates connected through promoting innovative work, creating a platform for selling and a forum where discussion, mentoring and debate can flourish.

The In Tandem jewellery collection will be on display to the general public in the Museum from 24 October to 24 November; selected pieces will be on sale in the Soane Shop or online at www.soane.org.

Sir John Soane’s Museum, 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3BP

This new public lecture series, supported by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund is entitled Current Modes of Artistic Production. It aims to give an insight into all aspects of artistic production through in-depth focus on a specific project by an invited artist. The inaugural lecture is by Yinka Shonibare MBE. The series will run throughout the 2012-13 academic year in the new Lecture Theatre at the Dyson Building in Battersea. Free admission, places are limited so early arrival is advised.

6.30pm Royal College of Art, Dyson Building, 1 Hester Road, Battersea, London SW11 4AN

During Frieze week the Printmaking programme will be exhibiting at the third Multiplied contemporary art in editions fair at Christie’s South Kensington. For more details visit www.multipliedartfair.com Free admission.

Christies, South Kensington, 85 Old Brompton Road, London SW7 3LD

The exhibition in the newly opened Dyson Building’s gallery brings together the 17 works acquired for the painting collection form 2009-11 as part of the Outset Acquisitions Fund. Presented as a group of works, the exhibition reveals the range of practices and approach over the last three years.

The fund, which allowed the RCA to acquire works by graduates, was the first initiative of its kind for the collection - which is primarily comprised of gifts and works left by students. Alongside the paintings, drawings, photography and installations will be archival display showing documents relating to key moments in the collection's history, placing these works and the Acquisitions Fund itself, in a wider artistic, historical and institutional context.

Open noon – 5pm daily (closed Sunday 14 October)
Royal College of Art, Dyson Building, 1 Hester Road, Battersea, London SW11 4AN

InnovationRCA, the College’s business incubator has been selecting and nurturing graduate enterprise potential since 1999. Innovate! celebrates this truly inspirational body of work and showcases the latest design innovations to emerge from the College. Products on display include the award winning Mu folding plug, Concrete Canvas and Squease garments. The exhibition takes place in the College’s new Dyson building which officially opens on 24 September.

Free admission, open 25, 26, 28 September, 11am – 6pm
Royal College of Art, Dyson Building, Hester Road, Battersea SW11 4AS

As part of the 2012 London Design Festival, the College is hosting the exhibition Design for the Real World, which takes its inspiration from the 40th anniversary of the English-language publication of Victor Papanek’s seminal text, Design for the Real World. In 1972, at a time of rampant consumerism, Papanek made a powerful case for the importance of inclusive and sustainable design in meeting the real needs of people. This exhibition explores both aspects of Papanek’s legacy. A presentation of 15 projects by Research Associates from the RCA’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design (HHCD) will showcase inclusive and human-centred design. This year’s projects include a community lighting project in Tower Hamlets; making roadworks safer for people with sight loss; reducing incidents of violence in A&E hospital departments; a redesign of the doctor’s bag and practical solutions for making offices more sustainable. SustainRCA, the cross-College centre for sustainability, will present a selection of sustainable design concepts by recent RCA graduates including new ideas for fashion, textiles, home products and transport.

The zoo as a showcase of modernist architecture will be the subject of an international symposium organised by RCA Critical & Historical Studies research student Eszter Steierhoffer. Internationally-acclaimed artists, academics and curators, including Richard Wentworth, Anthony Gall, David Crowley, Zsófia Frazon and Marcus Coates will offer perspectives on architecture within zoos, their relation to the city as a place of fantasy, and their role as sites of national representation. Discussions and a screening of short films, and the launch of a publication featuring specially-commissioned work by artists and architects around the theme of zoos.

All events are free but booking is essential: bookings@hungary.org.uk

For more detailed information visit: www.zoo-topia.com

ZSL London Zoo, Regents Park, London NW1 4RY

Students from the RCA’s Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork & Jewellery (GSM&J) programme took part in a nationwide competition with design-led, British cutlery company, Studio William. William Welch MA(RCA), founder of Studio William, was keen to encourage the students to develop innovative, yet practical forms. Sweet Instruments of Desire challenged the students to rethink conventional dessert cutlery and develop new pieces that would enhance the dessert course. RCA student Anabela Chan was the overall winner and her design, along with the other 53 students’ entries will be on display in the V&A’s Sackler Centre. Chan’s ‘Leaf’ dessert cutlery has been manufactured by Studio William and will be sold in John Lewis stores across the UK. Sweet Instruments of Desire demonstrates how creativity and innovation can impact the sensory experience of dining.
Studio William was founded by William Welch, a graduate of the GSM&J programme at the College.

For V&A opening times visit: www.vam.ac.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum, Foyer 1, Sackler Centre

The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) set RCA Design Products students a brief to design and produce a functional chair using American hardwood. Under the leadership of RCA tutors and designers Sebastian Wrong and Harry Richardson, the use of wood as a material and its life-cycle impact had to be taken into consideration by the students. The resulting designs, which go on display at the V&A’s Clore Study Room, have been developed into working prototypes with the help of Sir Terence Conran’s furniture manufacturing firm Benchmark. Education and research provides an important element to the project, AHEC is using its ground-breaking Life Cycle Assessment research to help the students produce detailed 'cradle-to-grave' impacts for their designs. The AHEC is well known in the international design community, having worked with the likes of David Adjaye, Matteo Thun, Arup and Amanda Levete for her Timber Wave at the V&A for the 2011 LDF. Out of the Woods is presented as part of the 2012 London Design Festival.

For V&A opening times visit: www.vam.ac.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum, Clore Study Room

The METAFLUX Platform is a two-day event of Fine Art casting-related talks, discussions, events and actions, which offers participants a unique chance to exchange ideas, processes, research and working practices. Participants taking part include Dr Peta Motture (V&A), Prof Ed Allington (artist and Head of Graduate Sculpture, Slade School of Fine Art), Dr Trish Lyons (Research Leader, School of Fine Art, RCA) and Francesca Bewer (Research Curator, Centre for Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard). Contributions from other art school foundries including West Wales School of the Arts, Royal College of Art, University of the Arts London and Slade School of Fine Art (UCL).

This fair, celebrating its 25th anniversary, champions modern British art and features 55 leading galleries and dealers. Work on display and for sale includes some of the great names of twentieth-century art, including: Bacon, Freud, Hepworth, Moore and Hockney, as well as contemporary work by Hirst, Emin, Banksy and the RCA’s Printmaking programme.

Admission charges apply. For further information and opening times visit: www.britishartfair.co.uk

Recent works by 16 Photography students from the RCA. The exhibition will include film, photography and installation. For more information visit www.octobergallery.co.uk

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AL
Free admission, open Tuesday – Saturday, 12.30–5.30pm

An evening programme of screenings and discussion, exploring the construction and deconstruction of physical spaces through the manipulation of sound and image. Curated by graduating students on the MA Curating Contemporary Art (Inspire) programme. For more details visit http://hackneydownsstudios.wordpress.com/

7.30–10pm. Hackney Downs Studios, Amhurst Terrace, London, E8 2BT

The Europa Triangle is a group exhibition about how we imagine Europe today, explored by 10 international artists and designers whose work is concerned with public space, politics and current affairs. The exhibition includes sculpture, installation and video, such as Austrian artist Hannes Zebedin’s new commission that looks at grass-roots movements resulting from last year’s London riots. Curated by RCA Tutor, Kit Hammond with contributions by RCA Curating Contemporary Art students.

Free admission
12–6pm, Wednesday to Saturday
Royal College of Art, Dyson Building Gallery, 1 Hester Road, Battersea, London SW11 4AN

Exhibition of work by first-year Sculpture students. Some work will be for sale.
Free admission
10am – 6pm daily
Royal College of Art, Sculpture Building, 15–25 Howie Street, Battersea, London SW11 4AS

Exhibition of work by first year Painting students. Some work will be for sale.
Free admission
10am – 6pm daily
Royal College of Art, Sackler Building, 14 Howie Street, Battersea, London SW11 4AY

Part of the London Festival of Architecture, this exhibition explores how airports are increasingly dominating our lives. Students and staff from the programmes of Applied Art, Architecture, Design, Fine Art and Fashion have produced this cross-disciplinary project which looks at how themes of time, place and encounter are encompassed by architectural space, urban intervention and the physical transience of every day experience. More info here www.lfa2012.org
Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, London, SW11 4NJ
11am – 5pm daily

First year students from Architecture will exhibit selected project work in anticipation of their graduate show next year. Students have established their own research agendas within the context of five diverse studio themes.
Free Admission. 10am to 6pm daily
The Gopher Hole, 350-354 Old Street, London EC1V 9NQ

Show Battersea features graduating students’ work from the Fine Art programmes of Painting, Photography, Printmaking and Sculpture, exhibiting at our campus south of the river. The Sculpture, Sackler and Dyson buildings will be used as gallery spaces, with Design Interactions and Design Products students exhibiting in the dramatic Testbed 1 gallery, located just around the corner. Most work will be for sale or commission.

Sculpture Building, 15–25 Howie Street, London SW11 4AS
Sackler Building, 14 Howie Street, London SW11 4AY
Dyson Building, 20 Howie Street, London SW11 4AY
Testbed 1, 33 Parkgate Road, London SW11 4NP

Show Kensington includes work by graduating students from the Schools of Architecture, Communication, Design (Innovation Design Engineering and Vehicle Design programmes), Humanities and Material. Students will exhibit in the College galleries, as well as the Stevens Building, with students taking over studios, staircases and corridors. Some work will be for sale or commission.

First year Curating Contemporary Art students present the first solo show by Swedish artist Anna Moderato. Departing from Yvonne Rainer’s 1960s seminal dance pieces featuring minimal gestures and movements, Moderato’s recent work investigates the limitations of the human body through repetitious action. The exhibition includes new sculptures conceived as elements for non-professional performers to interact with. An events programme featuring live performances and screenings will extend the themes of the show. For more info visit www.acme.org.uk/projectspace.php
1-6pm daily, free admission
Acme Project Space, 44 Bonner Road, London, E2 9JS
Performance evening 22 June 2012, 7pm – Acme Project Space
Screening programme 24 June 2012, 8pm – Hackney Picturehouse (For ticket information please visit: www.picturehouses.co.uk

Curated by a group of first year students from the Curating Contemporary Art programme, Public Access is an exhibition of internet-based works by a group of artists originating from the Americas. The exhibition takes the format of a ‘speed show’, a pop-up event held for one night in an internet café in London. This ‘speed show’ concept has become a popular exhibition format in the USA, this is the first time it will be seen in the UK. For more info visit www.public-access.org.uk.
4.30–9pm, free admission
Living Space Internet Café, 1 Coral Street, London SE1 7BE

First year Curating Contemporary Art students present this exhibition combining existing and newly commissioned works by several artists, who draw attention to and explore different approaches to the possibility of a future event that cannot be predicted with certainty. Works include films, gallery interventions and a book project by artists including KIMI CONRAD, Laura Garbštienė, Joe Crowdy and Matthew Noel-Tod.
12–6pm daily, free admission
French Riviera, 309 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 6AH
www.frenchriviera1988.com

The RCA Fashion programmes will be hosting their annual MA graduate fashion shows to the public on Wednesday 30 May at 4pm and 7pm, and to press and trade on Thursday 31 May. The show culminates with the Fashion Gala on the evening of 31 May. Tickets are available on the RCA website. For any enquiries, please contact fashion@rca.ac.uk.

A collaboration with the University of Kent, this exhibition will feature artists such as Tim Mara, Paula Rego, Chris Orr, Elisabeth Frink and Ana Maria Pacheco as well as the work of recent graduates of MA Printmaking. Key works from the RCA’s printmaking archive have been selected for the exhibition by recent graduates as influences on their work.

Studio 3 Gallery, Jarman Building, University of Kent, School of Arts, Canterbury Campus, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NZ
Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm, free admission.

Click here for more information.

This event brings together 'work made live' from across the Royal College of Art. Taking place in the atmospheric warehouse space at Testbed1 in Battersea, the evening explores a diversity of performance work. There are wide approaches which include body work, durational performances, spoken word, story-telling, musical performance, live installation and sculpture, rituals, and participatory practice.
7-9.30pm, Free Admission.
Testbed1, 33 Parkgate Road, Battersea, London SW11 4NP 

First year students from Photography and Printmaking exhibit their work in progress at the Battersea campus. Open 12–6pm except Sundays.
20 Howie Street, Battersea, London SW11 4AY

The theme for the 2011/12 RCA Architecture lecture series is Future Frontiers and focuses on five crucial themes that will shape the architecture and urbanism of this century. Each lecture includes two high-profile speakers who will present their cutting-edge research into the subject to offer critical thinking for critical times. The fifth lecture will look at Technology and will include Sir Peter Cook and Carlo Ratti, hosted in partnership with The Architectural Review. Lectures are free but seats need to be booked in advance by emailing: boris.cesnik@rca.ac.uk.

7pm, Lecture Theatre One

Organised by the RCA’s Design Products programme, over 90 students and recent graduates will be exhibiting work from across the College’s art and design disciplines, including Animation, Architecture, Ceramics and Glass, Design Interactions, Design Products, Fine Art, Innovation Design Engineering, Textiles and Visual Communication. The work has been selected by Professor Tord Boontje, Head of Design Products at the RCA with designer and RCA Tutor Onkar Kular who is also curating the exhibition.

Paradise will be located in the heart of the Ventura Lambrate district of Milan with students taking over the classrooms of a former school building on Via Ventura.

Via Ventura 4, Milan 20134
Open: 17–22 April 2012, 10am – 8pm daily. Free admission.
http://paradise.rca.ac.uk/

Exhibition featuring international artists who consider the potential of ritual as a catalyst for transformative experience, presented by final-year MA Curating Contemporary Art students. Includes newly commissioned and existing contemporary works, as well as documentation of works that have taken place outside a gallery environment. A programme of public talks, performances and screenings will accompany the exhibition. For further information visit: www.ritualwithoutmyth.rca.ac.uk.

Open 11am – 7pm daily

The theme for the 2011/12 RCA Architecture lecture series is Future Frontiers and focuses on five crucial themes that will shape the architecture and urbanism of this century. Each lecture includes two high-profile speakers who will present their cutting-edge research into the subject to offer critical thinking for critical times. The fourth lecture will look at Humanity and will include Peter Buchanan and Michael Sorkin, hosted in partnership with The Architectural Review. Lectures are free but seats need to be booked in advance by emailing: boris.cesnik@rca.ac.uk.

7pm, Lecture Theatre One

First-year students from the MA Printmaking programme will curate and present their work at Café Gallery. Giving artists space to make and present work in a gallery that supports experimentation is a vital part of the RCA’s professional practice programme. Group discussions will take place with invited critics and artists, giving the participants exposure to critical debate in a public space. For further information visit www.cgplondon.org.

Preview on 9 March, 6–8pm
Exhibition open 10–11 March, 11am – 4pm
CGP London, Southwark Park, London SE16 2UA

Leading selling exhibition in the ceramics calendar, presented by The Craft Potters Association with Ceramic Review magazine. The event provides a unique focus on excellence in contemporary studio ceramics based on the work of leading makers from the UK and from overseas. RCA Ceramics students will be exhibiting new work along with 75 leading contemporary ceramic artists who will be selling their work. There will be a programme of talks, demonstrations and films.

Admission £12. For opening times visit: www.ceramics.org.uk.

The theme for the 2011/12 RCA Architecture lecture series is Future Frontiers and focuses on five crucial themes that will shape the architecture and urbanism of this century. Each lecture includes two high-profile speakers who will present their cutting-edge research into the subject to offer critical thinking for critical times. The third lecture will look at Theory and will include Frédéric Migayrou and Anthony Vidler, hosted in partnership with The Architectural Review. Lectures are free but seats need to be booked in advance by emailing: boris.cesnik@rca.ac.uk.

7pm, Lecture Theatre One

This selling fair features modern and contemporary art from the UK but has a significant number of dealers who specialise in work from China, India, Japan, Russia, Poland and the Ukraine.  Artists include Matisse, Miró, Picasso and Chagall (all works on paper), urban art from the States, plus British 20th-century favourites such as Henry Moore, David Hockney, Mary Fedden, together with many emerging artists and a display by RCA Printmaking students.
For admission charges and opening times visit: www.20-21intartfair.com.

The theme for the 2011/12 RCA Architecture lecture series is Future Frontiers and focuses on five crucial themes that will shape the architecture and urbanism of this century. Each lecture includes two high-profile speakers who will present their cutting-edge research into the subject to offer critical thinking for critical times. The second lecture will look at Style and will include Charles Jencks and Patrik Schumacher, hosted in partnership with The Architectural Review. Lectures are free but seats need to be booked in advance by emailing: boris.cesnik@rca.ac.uk.

7pm, Lecture Theatre One

Students from the Animation, Architecture, Design Interactions, Design Products, Innovation Design Engineering and Vehicle Design programmes will present a work-in-progress exhibition.