Feast Your Eyes On the Best Student Magazines of This Year

Every summer, University of the Arts London holds physical showcases for their graduates. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, everything for 2020 has been moved online, to UAL Graduate Showcase – a virtual platform created with IBM, hosting work from thousands of students across art, design, fashion, communication, media and performing arts.

Throughout August, VICE UK will be spotlighting projects from graduates across the six colleges that make up University of the Arts London.

Below are a selection of different magazine projects from graduating students, exploring the subjects of same-sex education, food and witchcraft.

“From September this year, all schools in England will be required to teach about same-sex relationships and gender identity as part of the new curriculum. I wanted to celebrate this moment in history with my magazine. I spoke to queer people working in education up and down the country about their own experiences of school, and how they're working to undo the effects of Section 28.”

“If I had been taught about same-sex relationships at school, I think my life could’ve panned out very differently - I think I would’ve come to terms with my own sexuality much sooner had, at any point, someone told me that it was OK to be gay.

“Above all, the new curriculum will lead to a better society. Through education, we start to understand, and when there is understanding there is acceptance.”

You can find more of Isobel’s work here.

"YUCK was initially conceived as a response to society’s ever-increasing obsession with food, and its facile beatification that inundates us through media,” says Isabella. “I wanted to make a food magazine that questions this perfectly constructed, often unrealistic style of food media, by celebrating the unappetising, unappealing side of food: the bloody, the mouldy, the slimy and the dangerous.”

“Growing up in a very conscientious family, I was made aware from a young age that, in order to enjoy the delights food can offer us, it is also important to accept the not so savoury reality of the food industry, and that is what I have tried to encapsulate in this publication.

“I made the whole project from my childhood bedroom. To create the images for the publication, I took over the kitchen fridge with mouldy items of food and pieces of offal, including a surprisingly heavy pig’s head - which didn’t go down well in a vegetarian household."

You can find more of Isabella ’s work here.

“Sabbats are hugely powerful events through the Witches Wheel of the Year, which provide opportunities for reflection, community and guidance,” says Bubby. “I find them to be essential for my mental health maintenance; to set intentions for the coming months and to ground myself in the comfort of my little covens.”

“I want more people to know about them and engage, and that’s why I produced the zine: to be a handy tool, so anyone can easily celebrate in a safe space with their loved ones and friends.”

Discover more at the UAL Graduate Showcase.