This Friday, the 1st of May, I will hand in my last ever university assignment. I’ve had a great three years at Oxford Brookes and have learnt so much creatively. It does beg the question what is next, but before we answer that let’s rewind to 2017 when I joined Oxford Brookes.

When purchasing a ticket at the Tate Modern to see the Olafur Eliasson I was asked, I was if I was a member of Tate Collective to which I wasn’t, so I signed up. I have not thought about Tate Collective since then, however, inspired by looking into Yayoi Kusama, I thought I would use my lockdown time to look into the Tate Collective and see what it could offer during quarantine days. In doing this, I have realised how much and varied content that Tate Collective provides!

At university and home many of my friends have followed creative routes, sobeit through university or the casual hobbyist. I love being surrounded by people that inspire me every day through their work. During lockdown I wanted to catch up with some of them to see how Corona virus has impacted their work as well as creative industry as a whole. I spoke to a student photographer (SP), a freelance graphic designer (GD) and a painter (P).

You may remember several blogposts back I wrote about Tate Turning 20 and how it was very exciting as Yayoi Kusama was coming to exhibit some of her work. I’ve always been a fan of her work but have never had the time to fully explore her inspiration and career, now I’m in lockdown I haven’t much excuse to find out more about this incredibly interesting artist.

To coincide with International Women’s Day, I wanted to write a piece about one of my all time favourite female artists: Frida Kahlo.

In the twenty years since May 2000, Tate Modern has welcomed over 100 million visitors through their doors. To celebrate the anniversary of its opening they will dedicate a day to special displays and performances across the modern art gallery.

Following the success of the immersive Van Gogh exhibition in Barcelona and Seoul, the Meet Vincent van Gogh Experience is now on display in London and Lisbon.

London is expensive, it’s no secret, so in order to keep living or travel costs low it’s nice to have some free galleries to visit to further your art and culture knowledge of the city!

Last summer I was fortunate enough to get tickets to the highly acclaimed Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at the V&A Museum. It is the largest and most widespread Dior exhibition that the UK has ever hosted. Following the history from 1947 to present day, it explores the influence and impression all of the artistic directors have had since Christian Dior passed away in 1957.

Art education within the UK schooling system is in danger. The budgets and time available for art education are under high pressure and more importance is placed on ‘core’ subjects such as Maths and English, as these are the main indicators of the school level and how well it is succeeding in comparison to other schools. The lack of time and money dedicated to art education has led to a dramatic fall in students who are actively choosing to develop their education of art.