Across Grounds was a cross-campus collaboration project developed over one term with MFA Curating students, bringing together multiple Goldsmiths departments, collections and teaching staff: the Women’s Art Library, the Textile Collection, Constance Howard Gallery, the Art Research Garden, MFA Curating, MA Art & Ecology, MA Performance Making, and staff collaborators Ruby Hodgson, Althea Greenan, Hannah Stageman, Urte Janus, Katja Hilverra and Anna Colin.

The project invited students to respond to contemporary conditions, urgencies and frictions within each site. Together we produced five student-led outcomes, each exploring what it means to work with collections, gardens, archives and institutional space through methods of care, speculation, listening and embodied research.

WWA: Wrestling With the Archive
Women's Art Library (WAL)

Working in partnership with the Women’s Art Library, this programme investigated what actions are possible in the archive when research becomes physical, performative or resistant. Over two weeks, students activated archival boxes through events, performances and a growing display.

The opening night responded to Nina Höchtl’s SUPER DISIDENCIAS box through a live “restaging” performance and collective reading, asking what it means to re-enter an archive not as a passive researcher but as an active interlocutor.

Sēamestre
Textile Collection & Constance Howard Gallery

In dialogue with the Textile Collection, students explored the idea of “orphaned” textile objects, garments whose histories are fragmented, partial or unknowable.

The resulting exhibition presented repaired, reimagined and re-storied archival garments, accompanied by speculative folk-tale essays written by MFA Curating students. Sēamestre asked how we handle textiles with care, how we listen to the marks and wear of a garment, and how we might ethically narrate what cannot be verified.

'Dancing in the Dark'
Art Research Garden & MA Art and Ecology

This project considered how to decentre human-centric rhythms when responding to the garden, particularly its darkness, its harsh November weather, and its non-human nightlife.

Part one of a three-part programme unfolded during the opening event, featuring a DJ set sampling data from Harun Morrison & Paul Granjon’s permanent installation 'Singing Compost', and a projection loop of MA Art & Ecology artist Ruth Grimberg’s work-in-progress on moths.

Together these works created a nocturnal ecology in the garden, where light, soil and sound shaped the experience.

'Winter Harvest'
Art Research Garden & MA Art and Ecology

This event explored what the garden means to the curators themselves; how to give back to it, how to practice care, and how food ecologies can anchor collective learning.

Drawing from critical texts and seasonal considerations, the programme culminated in a long-table gathering in the garden, with shared food, readings and invited artists contributing to a warm winter finissage.

'Made From This Earth'
Somatic & Reading Circle in the Garden

Developed as a quieter, slower encounter with the garden, this workshop emphasised being-with: time spent in somatic practice, listening exercises and shared reading. Students reflected on seasonal shifts, soil, breath and presence, exploring how knowledge is generated through sustained attention.

A final strand of the project, developed with MA Performance Making, will unfold in the spring term.