The annual Degree Show is a highly anticipated event amongst staff, students, external partners and friends of the School of Art – it provides a platform for the work that the students have spent so long conceiving and producing. The 2023 Degree Show has been realised through an ongoing testing of ideas in public arenas in which the discourse around art practice takes place. This process of realising practice which engages with audiences has over the duration of the BA (Hons) Fine Art course seen this cohort make their work public in; the School of Art Gallery, Stryx Gallery in Digbeth, STEAMhouse, in their studios as part of the monthly Night School events and for those who participated in the Live Projects at Level 5 in the Bull Ring Rag Market. Through these events, students, whilst producing their own work, have considered things curatorially and collectively allowing them to approach the 2023 Degree Show as a group exhibition in which works sit together and communicate with each other. 

Individually, there are a breadth of ideas and approaches on display. Multidisciplinary works deal with a range of varied and unique issues – environmental activism, the abject body, intimacy and senses of being, play, time, autobiographical stories, identity and belonging (to name just a few of the themes dealt with in this years Degree Show). The outcomes you see are a result of the manipulation of materials, interrogation of form and display which have been driven by a curiosity for exploring the tension between intention, concept development and the effective resolution of ideas. Each of the works in the 2023 Degree Show demonstrate the hard work from the students – the ways in which they have found their individual voices and honed their practical skills.