A Look In/A Different Way brought Blackpool School Of Arts’ graduate showcase and youth-led festival together for one day in June – three months on, with a new cohort now settling in, we look back at what the class of 2026 achieved.
Back in June, Blackpool School of Arts threw its doors open for A Look In/A Different Way – a graduate showcase and youth arts festival running side by side across the site. With fashion shows, portrait drawing, skateboarding lessons, zero-waste textiles, it was the culmination of the hard work of students, many who were graduating. Three months on, and with a new cohort of students developing their creative practices at BSOA, we reflect on what the class of 2026 achieved.
The Saturday, 13 June event brought the two strands together on one site: A Look In, billed as BSOA’s 2026 Graduate Showcase, spanned final-year work across art and design, photography, illustration and digital practice, while A Different Way ran alongside it as the youth-led festival element, opening the day up beyond the exhibition space into workshops and activities for visitors.
“It’s not just fashion – it’s art, it’s graphic design, it’s a bit of music and skateboarding too,” explained Francesca, part of the Creative Fusion, the country’s first youth-led Local Cultural Education Partnership (LCEP), who put the festival together.
Jo had just graduated from the Creative Practice course when we spoke to her, textile with what she called “a hint of fashion.”
“My collection was following a zero waste philosophy,” she said. “I used repurposed wool, linen, hemp and lots of silks and hand dyeing and hand stitching.”
Elsewhere, Jack and Connor spent the day teaching festival-goers to skateboard, and Holly and Annabelle, level 3 art and design students, were drawing live portraits for visitors.
Fashion lecturer Angie Young highlighted the work from the first years on the catwalk that day, sparked by a trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park and William Kentridge’s exhibition there. A sculptural collection titled Gravity was backed by animations from the illustration students responding to the same trip.
“That was their first collection in their first project ever,” she said. For the graduating level 6 students, it was their first individual three-piece collection, and their last as students at Blackpool School of Arts.
There’s already a new cohort settling into Blackpool School of Arts this September, with their own first collections and first projects ahead of them. As for the class who just left, it’s exciting to see what comes next.
Find out more about the courses on offer at BSOA here.
