Border: Molly Grad at HOI

Molly Grad presents Border in the fourth-floor corridor at the House of Innovation, where she is an artist in residence. On view from spring through September 2026, the exhibition brings together painting and sculpture.

The works direct attention to urban surfaces, overlooked materials and what Grad calls “sites of occurrence”. Through shifts between natural and industrial materials, they consider how borders shape visibility, identity and value—and how neglected spaces or experiences can be seen differently.

The exhibition includes Footlocker (2025), a sculpture in mild steel, wood and marble, alongside the 2026 paintings XXI, XV, Arete and Chip carpet, made with oil and pigment on steel. The artwork list below records their order when viewed from the south of the building.

On 16 September 2026, Grad discussed Border and the wider idea of borders in an art talk at the House of Innovation, part of SSE’s programme exploring how artistic practice can contribute to research, teaching and knowledge creation.

Molly Grad is an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose practice spans sculpture, painting, textiles and public interventions. She works with found and discarded materials, paints on steel and uses processes including weaving, casting, metalwork and ceramics to reconsider how value and visibility are assigned.

Grad’s practice focuses on hidden histories and marginalised experiences, and on the social and environmental responsibilities of making. Her public interventions often thread brightly coloured fabric through neglected urban surfaces—a labour-intensive process she describes as “corseting concrete”—to draw attention to people, places and materials that are easily overlooked.

Before concentrating on art in 2019, Grad spent twenty years as a fashion designer for brands including Stella McCartney and Yves Saint Laurent, and designed costumes for artists and filmmakers including Beyoncé and Martin Scorsese.

She is a practice-led PhD candidate in Arts and Humanities at the Royal College of Art, where she also completed an MRes. She holds MA and BA degrees in Fashion Design from Central Saint Martins and is an artist in residence at the House of Innovation.