COURSEWORK by a University of Dundee graduate has been named among the world’s best at a major awards ceremony.
Fine Art graduate Dana Leslie, 24, has been named a global winner in the Global Undergraduate Awards 2022, the world’s largest academic awards programme that recognised the best work by artists.
Leslie’s work was named overall winner in the Visual Arts category for her work titled “Hope is a Form of Planning” which highlights the problem of gender-based violence and encourages interaction with the sharing, documenting and battling of gendered experiences.
She said: “I was really surprised to hear I had been named a global winner. It’s a nice reminder of how much work I put into my honours project.
“The UN declares that gender-based violence (GBV) is the ‘most widespread, devastating and persistent human rights violations in our world today’ and it is commonly agreed that the most effective forms of prevention for GBV are educating society and raising awareness.
“Considering how we can nurture compassion through art, my work intertwines the personal and the impersonal, calling for a better, more informed society beyond inequality and patriarchal power.
“Having this work recognised as being important in its field encourages me to keep using the arts’ different mediums and platforms to reveal current inequalities and strive for social and political change.”
The winning submission included artworks she prepared for her Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design Degree Show (DJCAD).
The artworks are an extension of a website Leslie launched last year which invited women to anonymously submit locations where they have experienced a form of gender-based violence, creating a living archive of individual experiences.
Dean of DJCAD Professor Anita Taylor added: “Dana was an exceptional student, whose final degree show addressed critical issues in an eloquent and powerful way.
“We look forward to seeing how Dana’s professional journey develops as she realises her ambitions to create art that has capacity to provoke compassion, document the overlooked, and to have tremendous social impact.”
Each year, thousands of students around the world submit their projects to the Global Undergraduate Awards with submissions reviewed by hundreds of judges.
A further three Dundee representatives were recognised at the awards.
Graduate Nicole Coutinho (24) and current student Astriti Vatwani (22) were named European Regional Winners in Psychology and Medical Sciences, respectively, while graduate Dana Cheung was highly commended in the Life Sciences category.
