Royal College of Art opens doors in London for creative Indian students

By Dimple Bangalore, Royal College of Art Writing MA graduate.

Oishi Dutta and Daksh Goel moved to London exactly a year ago as young creatives looking to pursue their respective Master’s programmes at the Royal College of Art (RCA). Within the short span of a year, they have showcased their work at Somerset House and the Southbank Centre, among other places. As they graduate from their programmes, they are preparing to curate Kaalchakra, an exhibition they are curating together for the London Design Festival. Kaalchakra (meaning the wheel of time) is being showcased on September 14 & 15 at London’s Asylum Chapel, and draws inspiration from South Asian cosmologies and ecological rhythms. They attribute these success milestones to their experience at the RCA – its diverse peers, experienced tutors, the space and freedom it provides to expand and experiment with their artistic practice, and its interactions with the city of London.

RCA, founded in 1837, stands as the world’s number 1 university for art and design for the 11th year in a row, according to the QS World University Subject Rankings. It is a postgraduate-only institution that is preeminent in the world of art, design, architecture, communication, and the humanities.
The RCA creates a thriving space for Indian students to leverage the exposure and opportunities available to them both at RCA and in London. As experienced by Oishi, Daksh, and me during the past year as students at the RCA, our individual talents are fostered towards real-life possibilities and impact. To better understand how RCA enables Indian students to expand their practice to the real world and beyond the walls of RCA, I spoke with Oishi and Daksh.
Daksh Goel, a graduate of CEPT University, Ahmedabad, chose to do the Design Products MA at the RCA because it allowed him to pursue an interdisciplinary approach to his design practice and gave him access to exceptional mentors and tutors. During his year at the RCA, those things made way for other unexpected and interesting things for Daksh. “In December 2024, I was working on something called the Grand Challenge at the RCA. For this, students from different courses come together and design products. In my team, there was someone from the Fashion MA, Textiles MA, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Service Design MA, and me.
We are tasked to solve an issue within London. Our district was Stratford in Newham. We ideated a project called ‘OffTheFarm – Folks’ to reimagine food access. Our project was about revitalizing the local markets there. This project was selected for the finals in the Grand Challenge. Because of that, I started interacting with farmers, which led me to the idea of creating habitats for bees and working towards their conservation. That’s how the BEE Initiative, which offers modular shelters and hydration stations for solitary bees in urban settings, came about. I developed that project and presented it at the SustainLab RCA. When that was showcased, a curator saw it within the RCA premises, and they reached out to me for a show at the Somerset House!”

“They said that they really liked my project and wanted to see if I would be willing to partner with them for Climate Action Week 2025. They were partnering with Volans, a sustainability advisory firm, who were interested in getting artists on board to present. This curator saw my work while walking in the RCA premises, and then they reached out to me. So this whole thing started from the Grand Challenge. It was a chain of events that I could not plan. I was just doing the work.”
Oishi Dutta, a graduate of the College of Art, Delhi University, chose to do the Contemporary Art Practice MA at the RCA for its spirit of experimentation. She says, “The courage to be weird and strange was something that really attracted me to the course”. Oishi discusses how receiving information about events and open calls from her tutors in the initial days helped her develop an understanding of the open calls in London and how she could leverage them. “I realized that the London open call system just works via applications. So then I just started applying over and over again. I applied for an open call at the Southbank Centre. They wanted me to talk about my work and give an artist’s talk about my practice and what I am doing at the RCA for an event called About Us! Artists’ Scratch Showcase”

“In March 2025, the Somerset House show just clicked for me. They were looking for female artists who used paper or paper cutting methods in their work, and they were interested in my collages. They literally walked around the RCA studios, and they were like – you're cutting paper, this work seems cool, can you tell us more about it? As the days went by, we figured out what was the work we wanted. At first, I was not sure what the scale or scope of the show was. Over time, I realised that the Chinese Embassy was involved and it was actually going to be in the prestigious Indigo Rooms at Somerset House! So, it was just me being at the College studio and working, and this opportunity came through. That's the sort of thing that just happens at the RCA.”
As for my RCA experience, having previously studied at Ashoka University and Columbia University, I chose to do the Writing MA programme at RCA because of its particularly unique offering to learn the art of writing without having to box it into any particular genre or type. Learning this from and along with tutors who are simultaneously writing and publishing themselves helped link my practice to opportunities beyond the classroom. I believe that RCA’s most unique institutional trait is that the system, the faculty, and the culture strive to enable each student to uncover, discover, learn, and unlearn what it means to be their best version of an artist or designer. It provides the skills and tools necessary to do so, while leaving space for the uniqueness the student brings to the table. This environment enabled me to ideate a book that sits between creative non-fiction and memoir. In the two chapters that I completed as part of my final project, I have begun writing my mother’s story within its familial, cultural, societal, and historical context of South India.
A common sentiment echoes amongst myself, Oishi, and Daksh: as artists and creatives at RCA and in London, despite being in our nascent years, we are taken seriously. We gain an audience, viewers, and readers for our work in a way that we had not discovered before in India. As Oishi puts it, “Even the smallest initiatives are treated with the same amount of respect, interest, and intrigue as larger ones or from experienced people in the industry. A lot of people are constantly looking at you, so I think there is a certain amount of access in the art world.”

The relationship with India and RCA continues to grow year-on-year. Annually, over 100 students from India graduate from the RCA joining its prestigious global alumni network. RCA might just be the next milestone for your creative aspirations and the right place to shape your ambitious future. You can explore the 40 postgraduate programmes offered by the RCA here.
Discover how the RCA is shaping the next generation of creative leaders and how their graduates shone at India Art Fair 2025.
The experience of all students quoted is a personal one, and the nature of programmes and activities may change.