Bracing should always “lean into opening” at ANNEX

This exhibition presents a varied selection of recent work by first-year MA and MFA students in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.

Though diverse in medium and approach, the works collectively offer a glimpse into the questions and concerns shaping contemporary artistic practice today. The everyday and the overlooked, our relationship to the natural world and its histories, the self as a politicised site, and the complex dynamics of looking and being looked at—these are just some of the themes that unfold across the exhibition.

This group brings together a broad range of experiences, shaped by different nationalities, generations, and disciplines. Some of them come from formal fine art training; others have backgrounds in political science, music, art history, design, and scenography. This diversity of perspective inflects the work throughout the show, encouraging unexpected dialogues between forms, materials, and ideas.

The practices on display span moving image, sound installation, performance, sculpture, photography, and digital media. Some works are highly personal, drawing from autobiographical memory or cultural inheritance; others address wider political, ecological, or philosophical concerns. Across these varied approaches, there is a shared interest in process, in testing materials and concepts to their limits, and in creating spaces where ambiguity can thrive.

Rather than forming a singular statement, the exhibition unfolds as a constellation—fragmented, dynamic, and unresolved. The works sit alongside each other, sometimes in tension, sometimes in harmony, connected by a shared commitment to process, inquiry, and experimentation. Together, they reflect a field of practice that is shifting, provisional, and actively in motion.

Participating artists:

Euan Francis Gubbins, Zeus Li, Sam Kan, Sofiya Marynyak, Daniel Taylor, Natalia Pavlovicova, Weichen Lin, James Milner, Yukio Yang, Manuel A. Hernandez R. ,Nassim L’Ghoul, Kaixiang Zhang, Gesiye, Yuchen Li, Zhuyang Liu, Liz Harrington, Shen Luyun, Claudia Ramírez Julio, William Lowry