About Kingston School of Art

What makes us different?

Kingston School of Art has four distinctive features that combine to set it apart from other universities:

The art school experience

We are an art school where our workshops and studios are open for creative exploration and allow opportunities for students and staff to work together and to share ideas whether they are studying or researching architecture, art, design or the creative industries. Our riverside site is home to events, to the Stanley Picker Gallery and brings together an active and creative community that is lively and always changing.

Practice-based learning

All our courses at Kingston School of Art have practice at their heart, whether that is the practice of making, of thinking and making together or of making through innovative and creative thinking.

We encourage and enable experimentation; skills development and dialogue as to the critical role of our past, of what it is to be human and how we expand our collective and creative potential through combining innovative and academic ideas and practices.

Working differently

We work closely with businesses, with communities and with the creative and cultural industries internationally. All our students have opportunities to work on live industry briefs for a wide range of clients and communities. Our staff are a rich mix of practising professionals and academics and our students have opportunities to experience work placements and artistic residencies that encourage discussion and debate with industry, designed to develop their expertise and stimulate entrepreneurial careers and creative business networks.

World–class facilities

The Design Museum describes our workshops and studios as ‘world class' and all our students have access to all facilities, regardless of their chosen discipline. Our community makes and learns together. We encourage our students and staff to be brave, experimental and entrepreneurial and to pursue careers internationally, working with and for leading brands and cultural organisations and we support them to establish and develop innovative businesses as creative leaders.

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The result?

The result is: our students pursue careers across the world, working for leading brands and cultural institutions. They set up innovative businesses; they take leadership roles in the creative industries; and in turn they build the knowledge-base of practice-based art, design and architecture.

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