MPhil/PhD (RCA)Communication

Exciting news! Artist Rowena Liangru Lu has just returned from a highly successful Design Week 2026 in Milan where she exhibited work from her furniture and home accessory series. The exhibition titled ‘Super Playground’ was hosted by Superstudio Design at Superstudio Village - a vibrant and experimental venue in the Bovisa Design District. Serious Play is a furniture and home accessory series Rowena began in 2022 and has since developed into her personal language of material and form. Serious Play was inspired by kids’ playthings, and was created with a very playful mindset in its core. Rowena explains: Play is an act through which we think and create, it is a mindset that is embedded deeply in our instinct and humanity, Play is not the opponent of Seriousness, Play matters.’ Rowena Liangru Lu (born 1997) is a London-based artist and maker, she was originally from Rizhao, China. Her medium expands from furniture, paintings to exhibitions, toys etc. Coming from a design background, her artwork explores constructed narratives and ideologies embedded in everyday objects, as well as the often invisible industrial systems behind contemporary living experiences. In her own words, she is “a maker who makes art about design.” She holds a BA in Industrial Design from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (Vancouver) and an MA in Design Products from the Royal College of Art (London). She is currently a PhD candidate in Communication Research at the Royal College of Art. #communicationresearch #designweekmilan2026 #seriousplay @rowena_linagru_lu @royalcollegeofart

We are pleased to feature the work of Bryan Yueshen Wu – a PhD researcher in the School of Communication, RCA. Attunement is a dub techno EP that treats sound making as an ongoing practice of listening. Developed from my research into self-listening, it approaches the phantom sound in the head as sonic material that can be negotiated, shaped, and gradually befriended. Across six tracks, breathing, sine-wave approximations of tinnitus, binaural walks through the city, and modular improvisations are composed into a restrained, pulse-driven language of chords, delays, and spatial diffusion. Dub functions here as a method of self-modulation. Through repetition and echo, the music forms a temporal space where inner sound, environmental noise, and musical intention can continually reorganise one another. The earlier pieces attend to the first emergence of the inner tone and the fragile work of coexistence. Later tracks move toward a more explicitly musical self, pushing at genre boundaries while mapping the limits of personal auditory space. The closing piece does not seek resolution through silence. Instead, it holds tinnitus within choirs, piano, and slowly dissolving reverberant fields, proposing a shift from conflict toward companionship. As a whole, the EP asks what it means to inhabit hearing when the ear never fully rests, and how dub techno’s spatial logics of repetition and delay can become tools for listening back to oneself. Now available on all streaming platforms: Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music. Released and distributed by HEM Records. Bryan Yueshen Wu is a new media and sound artist-researcher based in London. Having a background in industrial design and experience design, he is currently pursuing a PhD in RCA Communication Research, focusing on creative listening and sonification practices. Bryan’s practice spans sound design, sonic experience, interactive sound programming, audio-visual performance, and electronic music production. #communicationresearch #soundart #listening #doctoralstudies #royalcollegeofart @8ryan.w

Looking back.... In honour of International Women’s Day 2026, WD+RU in collaboration with Graham Newman, a School of Communication PhD researcher at the Royal College of Art, celebrated the work of women in the Department of Design Research (RCA, 1965-85). At a time when women were marginalised in the design field as a whole, the DDR was remarkable for its female representation. Some of those women part-inspired WD+RU, whose mission has always been to raise awareness about women working in the field of visual communication and design education. Their marginalisation remains an issue in 2026. A series of ten postings was created drawing from information found in DDR's archival materials. WD+RU Project Team: Siân Cook, Graham Newman, Teal Triggs #womenshistorymonth #graphicdesign #feminism #IWD2026 #archiveresearch #communicationdesign @tealtriggs @nostarpro @royalcollegeofart

Celebrate! RCA AI Festival (16-20 February 2026) Image: Visual identity by Yunqi Peng (PhD, School of Communication) "By combining RCA's traditional branding fonts with contemporary sans-serif typefaces, combining grid system outline with technological visual element, the design explores the visual dialogue between the institution’s historical depth and the emerging presence of artificial intelligence at the Royal College of Art." The Festival week also features work from School of Communication's PhD researchers: A workshop by Archana Prasad 'Beyond Bias - Making AI More Inclusive'. This hands-on workshop invites participants to engage with Beyond Bias, an ongoing initiative that reimagines generative AI through ethics, cultural diversity, and community agency And, as part of the RCA Doctoral Researchers exhibition work by Jingjie Zhang is on view. Collectively, the exhibition invites audiences to reflect on how AI listens, interprets, remembers and acts—and what is transformed in the process. Location: Hangar Space, Studio Building Full details: /news-and-events/events/rca-ai-festival-where-intelligence-meets-imagination/ @royalcollegeofart @rcasoc @tealtriggs @arcnoid @cheapball_yunqi

We love to hear what our graduates are doing! Many congrats to Dr Welmoet Wartena - guest curator for The UK Friends of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC) exhibition: Women to Watch UK: A Book Arts Revolution (10–12 February 2026), held at Christie’s London. The London exhibition showcased the work of five women artists who work with the book as part of their artistic practice. The exhibition explored the book as an experimental medium through material and conceptual approaches that shared common topics: history, cultural heritage, gender and language. Featured artists included @royalcollegeofart current PhD researcher, Larissa Nowicki. Larissa uses artists’ monographs as raw material combined with traditionally feminized, craft-based processes to critique 20th century fine art publishing. Her selected artworks for exhibit were deeply informed by her PhD practice-led research which investigates Anni Albers's 20th century essays on art and design. 'Women to Watch' is a long-running international programme initiated by the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington DC. It champions women artists at pivotal stages in their careers by providing museum visibility on an international platform. 'Women to Watch UK: A Book Arts Revolution' Curated by @welmoet_wartena Artists: Tamsin Green, Larissa Nowicki, Francisca Prieto, Batool Showghi, Rachel Smith @womeninthearts @rcasoc Images courtesy of larissanowicki

An Open Call for RCA PGR researchers itinerant space Vol. 6, Issue 4: 14 March 2026 "0 & 1" Keywords: ambiguous, transformation, speculative, generative, 0 & 1 itinerant space - a postgraduate academic research journal - invites expressions of interest from artists, designers, activists, curators, historians, philosophers, and scholars, from all the schools and research centres within RCA. As a scholarly platform, itinerant space draws on the inherent relationality of communication and opens possibilities for conversation, critical discourse and play. To submit to issue 4, please email your submission to: [email protected] by 9 February 2026 Follow the link in our bio for more information! #PhD #mphil #designresearch #royalcollegeofart #researchpractice #historyofdesign #designpractice #itinerantspace #universitypublication #rca #communication #communicationresearch #callforsubmissions @royalcollegeofart @rca_contemporaryartpractice @rcavisualcomm

Congrats to our very own doctoral researcher @Rizpah.amadasun for her award-winning entry into the RCA’s PGR 2025 "Bake Your Research Competition"! We also give a big shout-out and our many congratulations to everyone who entered such delicious cakes and shared their research stories that underpinned each creation. Rizpah explains: “Like a box of chocolates, cake brings people together, diverse in ingredients, rich in generational histories - cake signifies inclusion and quality time. This entry into the 2025 “PGR Bake Your Research” defied gravity on revolving platforms to illustrate the all-consuming systemic existence of white supremacy. A chocolate cake tower in a bird cage is caught as a spectacle, demonstrating the hypervisibility and the intersectional oppression experienced by black women. Each square tower is a symbol of diversity; the identities are made commodities by neoliberalism as a guise, to anti-fascist strategies. At the centre of the piece is a tower smothered violently by cream cheese frosting as white supremacy colonised, so the layers of orange, banana, rainbow marble, lemon and chocolate also vanish out of sight. Red hearts pouring out from the bottom and out of the tower in the birdcage to illustrate the misogynoir microaggressions harm caused by white supremacy. The chocolate tower on the wooden plinth sitting stationary is a proposal to refuse, to create an alternative space that empowers without domination.” #communication #research #connections #royalcollegeofart

The Autumn Term has been a time to get to know each other's practices and research. As we travel on this journey together, we decided to map the possible research connections between doctoral subjects, themes, methods, methodologies and practices. The conversations have been amazing and wonderfully insightful! Despite very different approaches and practices, there is still something essential to our research which brings us all together. Watch this space as we try and make sense of all the notes, scribbles, and generative ideas that begin to emerge! #communication #research #connections #royalcollegeofart

Autumn is in the air! It’s been a busy start to the term. A new cohort of PhD researchers have arrived! And with them, they have brought new research ideas, methods and practices; all adding to the richness of research conversations found in the School of Communication. Watch this space. In the meantime, speaking of spaces – we’ve moved our PGR Studios back to the Kensington Campus! Join us sitting around our lovely kitchen and enjoying the fruits of our first recipe corner: Apple and bramble crumble, anyone? 🍎 #PhD #MPhil #royalcollegeofart #researchpractice #communication #communicationresearch #designresearch #autumnstories #rca #phdcommunity

Itinerant Space Issue 3: Anticipatory IS NOW LIVE! Go to / . Keywords: improvisational, situated, anticipatory, embodied, longitudinal . itinerant space – a postgraduate academic research journal – draws on the inherent relationality of communication and opens possibilities for conversation, critical discourse and play. . . . . . #PhD #mphil #designresearch #royalcollegeofart #researchpractice #historyofdesign #designpractice #itinerantspace #universitypublication #rca #communication #communicationresearch @royalcollegeofart

Last week, PhD Communications student Rizpah Brinkman @rizpah.amadasun lead the workshop "Mind The Gap" to explore the academic conundrum afoot for anti-racist practices in everyday life. It provoked a very rich and open discussion following the game playing. Thank you, Rizpah! . . . . #phdcommunity #communication #communications #phd #royalcollegeofart #rca #workshop #mindthegap #antiracism #academia

Photos from Open Sesame Redux, an escape room treasure hunt by PhD Communications student Laura Boutros @shycamelowner and her colleagues for Great Exhibition Road Project! ✨ . . . . . #opensesame #puzzle #puzzlesolving #theatredesign #greatexhibitionroad #exhibitionroad #rca #royalcollegeofart #alibaba #alibabaandthefortythieves