I am working in collaboration with Christopher Hodson. We are both MA fine art students and both studying in the Midlands; I'm at Wolverhampton, Chris is at Birmingham. We have chosen to write about our experiences in a blog - Our Fine Art MA. We are in the process of designing and editing this blog and have received funding to publish a hard-copy artists' book. The book is primarily a diary detailing and documenting our work. However it is also a cursory look at art education and we are also promoting it as a 'users guide'. We have been formulating opinions about art education and comparing our respective institutions. I have been very interested in the recent AM debates at the ICA and the Ikon. From a student perspective the positions we find ourselves in are bewildering. I would like to echo a lot of the issues raised in Art Monthly and at the debates; I would like to see a sea change in art education. However, radical change would be challenged from both the student body and 'the (corporation) man'. A rock and a hard place. Students are already homogenised and obsessed with timetables, tutorials, semesters and assessments. Students demand their pound of flesh. Even if they haven't done any work they still want their student fees repaid in tutor quality time - they want a 'teacher' to feed and programme them, turn the key and set the cogs spinning, and to some effect. What does paying a teaching fee entitle a student to? The fees aren't the only reason for this; younger students have already been institutionalised by school and college. The education industry here is a bureaucratic machine of the highest specifications and in full swing. It has the capacity to make infant schools culture-less, SAT-driven with syllabuses filled with Maths, Science and English. High schools and further education colleges are driven by league tables and an obsession with growth and sprawl in partnership with corporations. Art and a liberal philosophy don't really influence younger students. Yes, the conceptual artists of yesterday are working in the universities of today, but I dare say they are not working in primary or secondary education or even on foundation courses. This, it seems to me, is a very British problem. From PhD research to reception education, each sector looks down on the next. To effect change, the utopian ideals of 1968 need to permeate school, college and university education. So you conceptual artists out there, are you willing to forgo your 'cushy' positions and sabbaticals, your research grants, and muck in further down the ladder?
I thought not.
Here's my utopian dream. University lecturers become visiting and practising artists teaching across education in universities, schools and colleges. All have a good and equal wage across all sectors. And, all have the opportunity for sabbatical and research development.
Christopher Hudson & Nathaniel Pitt, Worcester, www.ourfineartma.blogspot.com reproduced from the letters page, Art Monthly, September 2008.Go back to the debate about art education
