Schiaparelli, portraits of women in prison and student loans: this month’s creative industry news

A food in print fair, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize and the MOBO Awards: it's a vibrant month for creativity. From exhibitions to industry news, we’ve compiled the March highlights.

Food in Print fair launches in London

If you haven't read Vittles yet, you're in for a treat. The food magazine is teaming up with Pit and FatBoy Zine to put on Food in Print, London’s first food publishing fair. It will bring together your favourite food publications from around the UK, putting a spotlight on physical print and indie food media.

Food in Print fair takes place on 11 April at St Giles Cripplegate in the Barbican.

This art exhibition is a kick-back against an ableist art world

Featuring the work of nine artists and collectives, ‘I Need to Be More Than a Lesson You Learned’ explores the ways in which disabled artists have experienced inaccessibility within the art world and wider society. Bella Milroy’s drawings are on envelopes from the Department for Work and Pensions while Jo Longhurt’s film ‘ Private View’ makes visible the intimacy of care in sickness and Ezra Benus’ 'Relax (Sefirot/Tree of Life)' uses pedpans to explore the divinity of the body through the objects of illness.

'I Need to Be More Than a Lesson You Learned' is exhibiting online here.

'Relax (Sefirot/Tree of Life)' by Ezra Benus

The Government wants to hear about your experience of student loans

Feeling shafted when it comes to student loans? You’re not alone. Get your say on your student loan experiences via this government survey, with the hope that it will affect some kind of policy change. In case you're not in the know, the rundown is that most people's student debt has been growing despite their monthly payments, due to high-interest rates. ‘Loan shark’, ‘scammers’ and ‘predatory’ are just some of the terms being thrown around to refer to the current system in place.

Fill out the survey on your experience here.

The MOBO Awards 2026

The MOBO Awards celebrate excellence in Black music and culture. Leading this year’s nominations are Little Simz, Olivia Dean and rising stars kwn and Jim Legxacy, each with four nominations. The ceremony will take place in Manchester, with Olivia Dean, Aitch and Shenseea all performing.

The MOBO Awards take place on 26 March at Co-op Live, Manchester.

Diverse shortlisted photography at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize

Peruse the works of this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize’s shortlisted artists: Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka, Amak Mahmoodian and Rene Matić. Atwood documents life and ongoing inequalities in women’s prisons in the 1990s; Gęsicka reimagines fake encyclopaedia entries with humour; Mahmoodian exposes the effects of exile on memory and identity; Matić captures bodies and identities in intimate moments and everyday life. The winner of the £30,000 prize will be announced on 14 May.

On display at The Photographers’ Gallery from 6 March – 7 June.

This new report presents solutions for protecting UK creative industries from generative AI threats.

A new report looks more closely at AI and creativity, flagging that copyright protections for creators are now under threat – something we probably all know already, right? More noteworthy are the actions the report urges from the government: to make transparency about AI training data a statutory obligation; to create the conditions for a fair and inclusive UK licensing market and to prioritise the development and adoption of sovereign AI models, rather than relying on US models, amongst other recommendations. It’s a relief to see some solutions amid the typically apocalyptic creative-industry-AI landscape.

Read the full report here.

Schiaparelli Retrospective Opens at the V&A Museum

Do you remember that headline-sparking dress Kylie Jenner wore with an enormous Lion’s head attached to the front back in 2023? It was a Schiaparelli piece. At the end of this month, a blockbuster exhibition on the Italian fashion house opens at the V&A, exploring the life and work of Elsa Schiaparelli. From collaborating with the likes of Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dalí to her boundary-pushing garments, Schiaparelli blurred the line between fashion and art. “I don’t consider Elsa to be a dressmaker”, says current Schiaparelli artistic director Roseberry. “She was an image-maker, a culture creator, and she has been our north star with every red carpet moment since.”

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art opens at the V&A London on 28 March