Lucy Howie

Dundee’s Cooper Gallery is internationally recognised as one of the UK’s most radical contemporary art spaces for critical and discursive practice. However, in June 2026, the University of Dundee revealed proposals which threaten to close Cooper Gallery by July 2027 as part of a major cost-cutting effort to reduce University spending by £20 million.

The Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design annual Degree Show ran from 23 to 31 May, and featured works by over 400 final year students. The Fine Art and Art & Philosophy students showcased their work across four floors in the Crawford Building, where there is a deep and multifaceted investigation of materiality and multi-modal forms, which are grounded in a sense of place. Works span themes of fragility, selfhood and the documentary, breaking down traditional boundaries across media.

In Åsa Johannesson's exhibition The Queering of Photography, there is an almost life-size photograph of a large format camera on display, its lens pointed directly across from the gallery entrance. The camera operator’s body is obscured by a black cloak; only their white hand appears in the foreground to steady the tripod. We know the photographer under the dark cloth is the artist Åsa Johannesson, who directs her camera lens outwards and asks us to pause.