University of the Arts London

UAL Showcase Collections

Creative Change-makers

Pink flyer with large lettering "Wages for Housework"

An investigation on protest, resistance, and worker&#39;s rights through stories of the past, taken from the Bishopsgate Archive.&quot;This is an important theme paired with beautiful imagery. The Wages For Housework Campaign has inspired many other campaigns that call for a new approach to what we value and how. I love that Alexandra is so tuned to activist stories and histories and celebrates them so beautifully in this work.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Stories from the Bishopsgate Archive

An architectural sketch showing a memorial made up of hanging plastic bottles with holes in the centre and plants growing out of them.

Beyond Closure is an installation that seeks to reimagine the concept of memorialisation for the Bhopal Gas Leak, a catastrophic event that unfolded in 1984 in India, claiming thousands of lives.&quot;I like the idea of making memorialisation something that can be used as a social justice/campaigning tool. The artist has used this injustice, this powerful story, to creatively redefine the future and show how change through design has become a positive in people’s lives. It honours the past by protecting the future, which is powerful, beautiful and deeply practical.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Beyond Closure: redefining memorialization

A birds eye view of a city with a river running through it and green fields on the outside.

Recipes for Regenesis is a book of 14 recipes that embodies a year-long research endeavour on the impacts of animal agriculture on ecologies. It presents a co-creative process to image food systems that attempt to reverse extinction and catalyse regenesis.&quot;This is a really creative and detailed project that analyses, articulates, and envisions solutions to an area of climate injustice. There are treats on this plate to grab everyone’s attention – research, analysis, recipes, stories, pictures.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Recipes for Regenesis

A bright blue woven and yellow and white photo-collage spelling "STOP THE WAVE" and illustrating a wave of water.

By reporting warped and distorted data or information about immigration and immigrants in the UK, mainstream media outlets feed the public’s misunderstanding of the phenomena impacting political agendas and policies. Imagined Immigration is a collection of woven tapestries exploring the tension between the British public perception of immigration and concrete immigration data.&quot;This complex work is visually amazing and very clever. It grabs people&#39;s attention, especially as immigration is becoming a topic some people don’t want to hear about.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Imagined Immigration

Colourful cards from the 'We The People' deck laid out in a geometric pattern, showcasing range of content.

We The People is an educational workshop and a call to action for individuals to actively engage with the concept of a ‘social contract’ and its implications for a fairer society. &quot;I think this is an interesting concept. Sort of like a productive and non-offensive Cards Against Humanity. It&#39;s a clever and participatory way to engage audiences and encourage interaction that helps people to question their own views and understanding of the social contract.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

We The People: Cards For A Better Future

An inside of the final project leaflet showing detailed safety instructions for an active shooter procedure. The leaflet is titled: "The United States of America Safety Instructions"

Welcome to America, goes into the reality of gun violence in the United States and the what it brings to American culture. The audience embarks on an in-flight simulation to the United States and will learn a gun safety procedure through a series of physical and audio materials.&quot;This work is super innovative. Plus, kudos for the retro Pan Am-esque visuals. When you’ve heard the flight safety announcement a dozen times, you stop really hearing it. That’s what gun ownership in the US looks like from the outside — almost as if people have stopped seeing the horror and it’s just part of the health and safety of everyday life. It’s both bleak and witty.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Welcome to America.

Communities are never born out of top-down practices. They are formed through grassroots initiatives created by everyday city dwellers, through intimate and dispersed roots of trust, mutual aid, and solidarity that have been planted and nurtured to flourish.The narrative of this project unfolds in Woolwich, which once flourished with “self-thumping vitality” and was at the forefront of the cooperative movements. However, its inhabitants now feel it is merely a passive site of capital extraction, with local agents being threatened out of their spaces due to top-down gentrification schemes. &quot;This country is in desperate need of better architecture and design for public spaces and housing. Stephanie showcases how this can be achieved.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Life in Common

Interview on topic of sexual violence by Sophie Knox Peters.

Aftermath embarks on an exploration of sexual violence at a critical time. Through interviewing anonymous victims and perpetrators of sexual violence, this work delves deeper into the issues of consent and trauma in the USA, UK and EU. Recognising the increasingly divisive culture of blame and black-and-white thinking, the artist approaches the topic from multiple perspectives and asks questions openly following the #metoo movement and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.&quot;This hard-hitting project uses digital storytelling in a way that draws in the person experiencing it. It is a very reflective piece of work on the nuances of sexual violence that are very rarely heard. Socially, it raises awareness and enables victims/ survivors to be ‘listened to’ in an intimate way.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Aftermath

Image shows three AI-generated women wearing clothes made out of organic materials mostly out of green and grey colours.

The fashion sector contributes 4% of global GHG emissions, matching the combined annual emissions of France, Germany, and the UK. iii footprint is an online shopping plug-in that aims to stand at the forefront of a transformative movement — connecting consumers with brands to achieve carbon neutrality in both production and usage.&quot;This project feels very ‘now’ in terms of how the younger generation feels about disposable fashion. Clearly, so much research and analysis has been done to create it. iii footprint could be a tool in the movement that transforms the way we shop for clothes online and teaches us about their production.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Fashion Carbon Footprint Calculator Plug-in

A proposed sketch shows workers in high-vis jackets relaxing in a common room, with one person in a red beanie leaning against the wall and facing the viewer, a few sitting down, one hunched over a bar and a cafe worker making a drink.

Who Cares designs an infrastructure of care to be spread throughout the city, dedicated to those who care for and maintain it. The project questions labour ethics and their precarious relationship to the space we provide for carers, specifically how these spaces are dignified and how they can give care back.&quot;This project lingered with me. Once you see how people are pushed out of physical spaces, often those who most need a moment of rest or comfort, you can’t stop seeing how injustice is literally built into our public spaces. This work is extremely powerful.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Who Cares

Four rusted metal origami boats increasing in size from left to right.

Wild Dreams examines the intricate social issues surrounding Nigeria&#39;s history. Focusing on second-generational migrations, restitutions, and the looting of Benin artefacts, this project explores the Black experience and aims to retell the narrative from the past to the present in a somewhat fictional manner.&quot;The concept of the work is historically interesting, especially if one doesn’t know much about this history. However, what really stuck out to me was the quality and beauty of the small boat objects. Visually, they are very striking. The whole project holds together in all its outputs really well.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

Wild Dreams

Woman looks at her laptop as she plays the 'Nothing to Hide' game

Nothing to Hide is a short educational game about weaponised digital advertisements. The player takes on the role of a political manipulator employed to help a conservative party in a fictional country win a presidential election. To achieve that, they will have to use several strategies of weaponising digital advertisements and exploiting voters’ data.&quot;I have a soft spot for gaming, so I like the way they&#39;ve introduced a &#39;fun&#39; way to highlight the awful advertising practices that we&#39;re all exposed to in this digital world.&quot; – Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.