Following Fallowing: Exhibition by SustainLab RCA 2025/26

SustainLab RCA presents Following Fallowing, society’s annual and Royal College of Art’s biggest exhibition showcasing environmentally-conscious works, including Schools of Arts & Humanities, Design, and Communications.

In a contemporary era defined by productivity, speed, and measurable outcomes, stopping is often perceived as a sign of stagnation. Yet the agricultural practice of fallowing, the intentional resting of land to restore its vitality, maintain ecological balance, and prepare for future cultivation, offers another perspective. Fallowing is not simply a pause in output; it is an active, cyclical process that sustains long-term fertility, resilience, and care. Following Fallowing draws on this principle to reconsider the relationship between rest, creativity, and sustainability. Rather than framing rest as withdrawal or inactivity, the exhibition positions it as a fundamental condition for making, a generative interval through which ideas mature, systems recalibrate, and practices renew themselves. In doing so, it asks: What might creative resilience look like if we valued cycles of pause as much as cycles of production? Bringing together artists, designers, and creative practitioners from the Royal College of Art, the exhibition engages fallowing across diverse media, including painting, photography, sculpture, interactive installation, and video. Through material choices, temporal processes, and spatial interventions, the participants explore cycles of depletion and regeneration, labour and latency, presence and withdrawal. Rest is approached not as a temporary interruption but as a methodology, one embedded within ecological, intellectual, and artistic systems. At a moment when creative and ecological exhaustion feel increasingly visible, Following Fallowing invites visitors to consider rest as an essential practice of sustainability. Just as soil must lie fallow to recover its fertility, our cultural and creative ecosystems require intervals of stillness to remain alive. The exhibition proposes that resilience does not emerge from constant acceleration, but from the courage to pause, restore, and begin again. Exhibition Information - Exhibition dates: 28 March – 9 April 2026 - Preview & Opening: Saturday 28 March, 12–7.30 pm - Closing Event & Ecollegey Festival: 9 April, 2–9.30 pm - General Public: 28 March (12–7.30 pm), 8, 9 April (2–9.30 pm) - RCA Staff & Students Only: 30, 31 March, 1 April - Closed during college closure: 2–7 April 2026 Venue: Hangar Gallery, Studio Building (Battersea Campus), Royal College of Art, Howie Street, London SW11 4AS. Workshops & Artist Talks - 28th March 6.00 pm – Live sound performance by Zhenghao Chen (Sparro). - 8th April 11 am – Material Memory workshop with Ewan Atkinson. Participants are invited to bring small amounts of "sentimental waste” to learn basic spinning or weaving techniques. - 8th April 3.00 pm – Material workshop with a group of five designers from MA Textile, Fashion, Service Design, and Design Product. - 8th April 4 pm – Knitting and weaving performance and workshop with Manwai Lei (Vivian Lei). - 8th April 6.30 pm – Musical Performance: A live electro-acoustic Sound Bath with John Huw Davies. - 9th April 11.00 am – Workshop on sustainably sourcing and making pigments from recycled and found materials with Jozef Michalski. - 9th April 1.00 pm – Painting with natural material workshop with Elina Yumasheva. - 9th April 2.00 pm – Walking meditation “Fallowing Walk” designed to learn how to experience the exhibition in a grounded and receptive state. *All workshops and performances will take place at the Hangar Gallery. No sign-up required – spaces are available on a first-come, first-served basis.* Exhibiting Artists and Designers This year’s exhibition showcases over 30 artists and designers from the MA Animation, MA Architecture, MA Ceramics and Glass, MA Contemporary Art Practice, MA Curating Contemporary Art, MA Design Products, MA Information Experience Design, MA Innovation Design Engineering, MA Interior Design, MA Painting, MA Photography, MA Print, MA Sculpture, MA Service Design, MA Textile, and MFA, featuring works of: Bofei Wan, Conni McKenzie, Elena Saraceni Anzola, Elina Yumasheva, Ewan Atkinson, Georgia Giadalzell, Hanzi He, Harriet Rutter, Isabelle Zetterström, Jin Tian, John Huw Davies, Jozef Michalski, Jung Min Yoon, Tianyi Li, Luchen Xi, Manwai Lei, Maria Rahal, Megan Peng, Michelle Owen, Nefeli Vitoraki, Noure Miao, Olivia Webb, Pagan McKenzie, Pil Gyu Jang, Qianwen Xing, Rebecca Thomas-Mccann, Rui Lu, Sahar Khaleghi, Sahithya Mahadevan, Salma Kabil, Sophie De Carvalho, Talisa Rubina, Verona Shi, Wenjie Feng, Xin Jin, and Yingqi Wang, Zhenghao Chen (Sparro), and Mud Collective (Antara Priti Vinay, Beatriz Ferreira Camargo Rocha, Frances O’Leary, Megan Wheatley and Moyo Adebayo). Curatorial Team Ie Jin Choi, Lily Yiyan Hou, Lotem Rozen, Mehak Maharia, Neelanchal Gupta, Tanaya Dnyaneshwar Chitale, Vittoria Giusti. Design Team Abhay Shenoy, Neelanchal Gupta, Pankhuri Soni, Tarangini. About SustainLab RCA SustainLab RCA is an award-winning society for all RCA students to explore what sustainability means and how it can be integrated into their creative practice. Voted Society of the Year in 2024 and 2025. Image credit: Lu Rui

What to expect:
Digital, Mixed media, Film / Video, Audio / Sound, Sculpture, Painting, Multi-disciplinary, Drawing, Photography, Prints, Performance / Live Art, Installation