Mariam Syed, weaver and Applied Arts Scotland Board Member reflects on her experience of judging the Applied Arts Scotland Award at Visual Arts Scotland’s Open Exhibition, selecting the recipient Molly Kent.
Judging on behalf of Applied Arts Scotland (AAS) at the Visual Arts Scotland (VAS) Open Exhibition, The Thread That Pulls, was a particularly rewarding experience. To spend time with such a breadth of work and be entrusted with choosing a winner is an honour. The exhibition brought together a wide range of contemporary practices, united by a shared sensitivity to material, process and storytelling. Alongside fellow judges and AAS Board Members Clare Waddle and Lynne Hocking in December 2025, I had the opportunity to engage deeply with work that was ambitious, thoughtful and often deeply personal.
Our role as judges was not simply to select a “best” work, but to carefully consider how artists were engaging with material, concept and audience. The judging criteria set by AAS focused on three key areas: innovation and creativity, technical skill and mastery, and impact and engagement. These criteria guided our discussions, encouraging us to look beyond immediate visual appeal and towards the deeper intentions and outcomes of each artist’s practice.
Judging collaboratively is always an enlightening process. Each of us brought different perspectives, experiences and areas of expertise to the table, which led to rich conversations about what constitutes excellence in applied and visual arts today. We were particularly interested in work where concept, material use, skill, and execution came together to create a meaningful impact on the viewer.
It was within this context that the work of Molly Kent stood out. Molly presented two works — one ceramic and one tapestry — that immediately caught our attention for their unexpected combination of disciplines. Rather than feeling disparate, the pairing felt deliberate and conceptually coherent, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of how different materials can speak to one another.
I was personally drawn to the titles of her works: ‘Choose Your Own Adventure (aka Magnet Pot)’ for the ceramic vase, and ‘Everything That Could Go Wrong, Did Go Wrong (But Maybe It’s Not My Fault)’ for the tapestry. There was something refreshingly honest and disarming about these phrases. Inspired by Adobe Dreamweaver, motifs such as emojis, computer windows, and mouse pointers appear throughout both pieces, signalling vulnerability and humour.
Molly, a textile artist is passionate about learning new techniques that can be later incorporated into their practice. Following an Unlimited development bursary, Molly was able to experiment with sculpted ceramics forms and translate the narrative scenes and symbols from their textiles into a 3D form. Using this knowledge of ceramics, they create vessels with hand-painted magnets on their exterior, allowing them to be removed and rearranged to create new narratives for the piece. Fusing this knowledge into their textiles, Molly is weaving tapestries with small details modelled out of ceramics and then stitched into the surface of the textiles, adding a new depth and texture to her already visually rich textiles.
As both ceramics and tapestry have been historically used as objects of storytelling, Molly feels the two mediums work incredibly well together. By working in both mediums side by side, it has populated new ideas into how the two can coexist and push each respective medium forward. Currently, Molly is working on weaving a tapestry that will act as a base, to which the viewers can attach magnetic free-form tapestries onto the surface and to an extent create their own composition within the work.
Ultimately, Molly Kent’s work fulfilled all of our judging criteria with clarity and confidence. It was innovative in its blending of materials and references, technically strong in its execution, and impactful and engaging. For these reasons, we were delighted to award Molly one year of free membership with AAS, along with an invitation to contribute to the Connecting Makers programme.
Selecting Molly as the award recipient felt not only like a recognition of outstanding work, but an investment in an artist whose practice meaningfully contributes to contemporary conversations around mental health, materiality and digital life. It was a pleasure to encounter such thoughtful work, and I look forward to seeing how Molly’s practice continues to evolve.
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