Monday 23 November 2020 at 9am - 11:59am

Claiming Your Space: BAME Artistic Competition

Having a sense of belonging is essential to a fulfilling university experience. However, even today, the site of higher education can be stifling for students on account of not being adequately reflected by the predominantly heteropatriarchal environment. Arguably, in order to feel accepted, or at the very least, palatable to such spaces, the marginalised student develops a pernicious coping mechanism that involves the shrinking or remoulding of themselves. The antidote to this is very much the need of the hour. Incidentally, much like higher education, institutions of art have long claimed to be champions of diverse representation but sadly even today, it feels as if this rhetoric rings hollow. 

Claiming Your Space is a project within the wider Decolonising NCL campaign and aims to provide the opportunity for BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) students to artistically explore and capture their Higher Education space which enable them to exist unapologetically (without having to explain or justify ourselves). This project invites any BAME student from Newcastle University, to submit artwork (photograph, painting, drawing, illustration and poetry) that they feel best encapsulates an experience surrounding this theme. At the end of this project, university staff, students and a panel of distinguished guests will decide which entries have captured the imagination(s), impelling us to move ever forward in creating a more equal, diverse and inclusive university.

The Competition closes on February 12th (extended deadline). 

Once you have submitted your artwork, they will all be featured across on our competition Instagram page. If you'd like to see the submissions as they come in, use the link below to follow our account.

Follow Instagram PageSubmit Artwork

Download your copy here.

Finishes at 11:59