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Post-Grad Portraits: Rachael Lakhan

Written byPost-Grad Community
Published date 05 March 2024

Post-Grad Portraits is a chance to highlight the achievements of members of the postgraduate community at UAL from the last decade. Post-Grad Portraits is part of our celebration of Post-Grad Community's 10 year anniversary.

Rachael Lakhan

UAL Post-Grad Community Manager (2013 - now)

Hello Rachael! Could you introduce yourself?

Hi, my name is Rachael Lakhan and I am the Founder and Manager of UAL Post-Grad Community!

Tell us how did Post-Grad Community come about?

Back in 2013, 10 years ago, UAL carried out a Shift Learning survey with around three thousand postgraduate students, current at the time and alumni. This helped them to better understand the needs of our postgrads and how they were keen to be given more opportunity for networking, ways to reach out to other postgrads across disciplines and colleges, better internal communications, confident access to events in other colleges at UAL, links to services and an overall better sense of community. I applied for what was a secondment role to build a postgraduate community (research and taught) at the University which responded to all of these needs.

My first point of call was to create the Friday newsletter, which to this day, is used as a vehicle for promotion, voice and opportunity for our current students and alumni. I tested out ideas for Pop Up Common Room events for networking opportuities and I organised these pop ups in London galleries and artist studios. I relentlessley travelled around the six UAL colleges, meeting event managers and stakeholders to gather agreements for opening up events and communications for the entire postgraduate student community at UAL to access.

a group of people posing for a photo — **Grayson Perry's Studio Post-Graduate Pop-Up Common Room | Photograph: Rachael Lakhan**

**Post-Grad Community Pop-Up Common Room | Design: Rachael Lakhan**

What's your proudest moment?

At the same time of taking on this community project, the University also launched The UAL Chair Project 2013-2016 which, funded by the Specialist Institutions Fund, saw the University appoint 12 Professors as University-wide Chairs. They were tasked in giving our students the benefit of their industry expertise across disciplines and colleges alongside creating some public events and inviting important creatives to speak to our audiences. I managed all of their 200+ events over the 3 years of the project, which reached over 80 thousand people!

Utilising the Chair Project activity and content for our new Post-Grad Community audiences, I also managed the complimentary video documentation project, employing a recent MA Documentary Film graduate from London College of Communication Gareth Johnson who worked with me on producing over 60 short videos and culminating with this documentary style film we titled 'Creative Futures'.

I am also very proud of being able to steer our programme of activity and content online during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Instantly moving everything we did 100% online and creating projects that responded to the much needed wellbeing of our students with what was then, a desperate need for our students to have a voice, community strength and some positivity within a somewhat negative situation.

Walls in Online Places (WIOP) is an online exhibition showcase for students created at the start of the pandemic to allow postgrads to share their work whilst in isolation and practicing social distancing.

**Izzy Schreiber, 2020 MA Fashion Photography, London College of Fashion, UAL**

The exhibition open call was inspired by Hans Ulrich Obrist’s article The Kitchen Show for Paris Review in 2014. It describes how Obrist went about curating an exhibition in his kitchen and the alternative ways in which artists made and installed work in this non-gallery setting.

**Liang Xiao, 2020 MA Art and Science, Central Saint Martins, UAL**

**Madison Beach, 2020 MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, London College of Communication, UAL**

This project is a fantastic example of the resilience of our students during this challenging time . It was also a great way to showcase the flexibility of our Post-Grad Community's online channels as spaces to publish and exhibit work.

What’s your biggest strength?

I am the biggest optimistic you can meet. I love a challenge and am a massive people person. I have worked in Higher Education Art and Design for 23 years and still love this area of work. Every day is different, inspiring and I feel I have great skills for understanding individual needs and creating opportunities for them.

I also work with a wonderful team with Fred Kavanagh our Post-Grad Community Events Coordinator and Catriona Mahmoud our Post-Grad Community Liaison Coordinator – who alongside myself and our cohort of student Ambassadors, work together in ensuring Post-Grad Community is the confident and responsive platform it is today.

What's your biggest weakness?

Maybe taking on too much, I come up with an idea and go for it 100%. Also being a Mum of four, two of which are under the age of 5 and a carer for 87-year old mother in law who lives with us - I have a very busy work and home life. I need to be reminded to relax sometimes.

**Lakhan Family | Image courtesy of Rachael Lakhan**

What's the biggest learning experience you've had?

When I graduated from my Arts Management studies in 2007 I moved to Dover and found a derelict indoor market and approached the then owners. I set up community interest company White Nave, secured funding and set up temporary studios, project space and a gallery which I ran for 18 months alongside a support group for fine art graduates called the Artist Fulcrum.

I invited some amazing artists to come and show work in Dover including Tacita Dean, Spartacus Chetwynd, David Medalla, Pete Filliingham and Jake and Dinos Chapman alongside fine art graduates from Universities in Kent, London and Nord Pas de Calais. I learned so much about arts and regeneration and community building from this amazing experience.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Perhaps still working at UAL, hopefully managing even more inspiring community centred projects! I really do love it here. Since starting Post-Grad Community 10 years ago, the postgraduate student body at UAL has doubled in size to around 6,000 and is the largest postgraduate art and design community in Europe. I see myself now as a specialist in building a community in this area and truly love the cross disiplinary conversations and collaborations I have had the pleasure to be a part of over the past 10 years. Here's to another 10!....