Manchester School of Art students selected for 2025 Venice Fellowships

Aur Bleddyn from MA Contemporary Curating and Amy Bradnock from BA Fine Art have been specially chosen to take part in the 2025 Venice Fellowships, a unique programme for creative individuals, students, researchers, artists and professionals at the early stages of their career. As part of the programme, they will spend a month in Venice during the world’s most important art and architecture biennales. 

Aur Bleddyn is pursuing a Masters is Contemporary Curation to consider the social value of art in communicating identity and culture in accessible ways, exploring themes of identity while engaging with forms of art connected to Welsh heritage. Aur’s project in Venice is inspired by the Welsh tradition, Tŷ Unnos, the tradition of building a house on common land in a single night and have a fire burning with smoke coming out of the chimney by morning to claim the land. Speaking on the importance of art in communicating identity, Aur said: “Art can work as an accessible tool of resistance for marginalised voices to reclaim and reimagine identity and culture. I’m drawn to representing my own identity by curating with Welsh artists so we can better understand and communicate the traditional and contemporary identity”.

She went on to explain how her time at Manchester School of Art has helped her develop her own identity: “My time at Manchester School of Art has helped me develop my identity as a curator as I have been able to be around other artists and curators and observe the current trends in the artworld within Manchester and beyond through experiences offered by the University”.

The work of BA Fine Art student Amy Bradnock explores the inherent materiality of clay, its responsiveness to touch, and its agency as a material. Speaking on what drew her to the ceramic art form, Amy said:“I believe craft-based art forms such as ceramics have a unique presence because they demand a physical relationship between the maker and the material. Clay is inherently tangible, as it requires rhythmic motions and a bodily sensitivity to create shape and form. The traces left by our hands within the clay become part of the final object, creating a visible intimacy that is not only a personal expression but also a shared human experience. I find this intimacy makes ceramics particularly accessible. We instinctively respond to the familiarity of the material offering a playful, intuitive way to communicate and build dialogue through the act of making”.  

This idea of using art as a means of communication to connect communities is something that Amy believes she learned during her time at Manchester School of Art: “One of the most important things I’ve learned during my time at Manchester School of Art is the value of community, especially in the shared workshop spaces where I spend the majority of my time. It’s been inspiring to see how people from different disciplines, like craft, illustration, alongside fine art, all engage with the same material in unique ways. That exchange of skill-based knowledge and the learning that happens simply by being around others has shaped how I think about my practice. It lead me to be more open with materials, embracing experimentation and seeing uncertainty or mistakes not as failures, but as opportunities for learning and play, which ultimately led to an interest in materiality, focusing on process and interactions, opposed to a fixed outcome”.  

The Venice Fellowships will provide both students a fantastic opportunity to learn new ideas in a unique creative environment and develop their creative practices surrounded by ground-breaking artists at the city’s biennials. Speaking on being selected for the Venice Fellowship, Amy Bradnock said: “I’m incredibly excited. It was completely unexpected, and I feel very fortunate to have been given this opportunity. What I’m most looking forward to is being immersed in the Biennale itself. I’ve never engaged with an international exhibition on this scale before, and I’m excited not only to experience the work on display but also to observe how visitors interact with it. I’m particularly interested in how people navigate the space, seeing where they pause, gather, or move through, and how these patterns of movement reflect their engagement with the exhibition. This will be a valuable chance to reflect on how materials are encountered in different spatial contexts, especially within architectural environments where I hope to develop my understanding of how materials can shape, disrupt, or enhance our perception of space through interaction”.   

Aur Bleddyn added: “I’m very grateful to have been selected for the Venice Fellowship 2025, it has given me confidence in my curatorial research and I hope through this experience I can work with the people who live in Venice to apply my research around cultural memory in a site specific context”.

Find out more about the fellowships and Amy and Aur’s projects here.