Where future hope lies

Much criticism of current trends in art education is made on the basis of how it is becoming increasingly homogeneous (rather than fostering genius?). While counterclaims about 'widening participation' by the proponents of teaching and learning are mostly politically correct rhetoric, there are some interesting positive shifts occurring in art education, despite the fact that increasingly high fees make the latter catchword risible and actually encourage the kind of bourgeois romantic individualism traditionally - and still - associated with studying art.

The not-so-good old days discriminated against students who did not display the valued artist's traits of individuality and mastery coupled with the ability to adapt fashionable trends with panache and skill. Students interested in issue-based practices exploring subjectivity and identity often struggled for attention and understanding in an educational environment that was male-dominated and operated according to the unspoken tenets of a high modernist legacy, a discourse foreign to many students' interests. At ground level, the current art educational environment is much more pluralistic and supportive of a whole range of discourses, which is a cause for celebration, and while some questionable management agendas have been introduced, I think we are going through a transitional phase of positive change. This view means putting to one side the threat of further funding cuts and the fact that most of the things I feel optimistic about are marginal - probably unforeseen - outcomes of the rhetoric of funding and research and its sister body, teaching and learning.

At many levels, the recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) was divisive and riddled with paranoia and secrecy. However, in spite of this, a stronger sense of belonging to an educational community is currently developing among lecturers involved in research and teaching. While cynics might say that the shared research interest groups that have sprung up in various institutions are simply a ploy to get funding, it is the case that they are generating a much more dynamic environment engaged in issues and dialogue about practice. This is a major shift from the not-so-good old days where lecturers whose research record was slim, or at the early stages, were overlooked in favour of established artists. This sense of community also extends to teaching.

While the serious issues of space allocation and teaching time continue to be battlegrounds for fine art courses, an unforeseen result of the rhetoric of learning outcomes and their attendant factors has resulted in the creation of a strong community of student learners as a result of academics' canny adaptation of these superficially transparent quantifiers. Rather than the isolation that many students might have experienced in the past, group seminars and recognised student initiatives now form the backbone of fine art courses. Since the administrative imposition of penalties for late submission and the (financially necessary) practice of cross-area teaching, there is much more commitment to the theory component of the fine art courses, once tolerated as an unnecessary burden for 'artists'. Most art students will not become artists, but all will benefit from the strengths of an art education which are to think independently and to have an acute awareness of the language of images and the discourses in which they participate.

The shifts in art education that we are witnessing relate to the governmental shift from a patriarchal to a paternalistic culture, from sadistic leadership to decentralised management. There is no resistance to this type of horizontally distributed power, only the necessity to recognise that we all deploy power and to negotiate which power performances we lend our energy to and which we refuse - refusal in the right context being a strong exercise of power. The languages of research and teaching and learning that are being imposed are not necessarily bad in themselves. They can and are being rearticulated in terms that allow for more flexibility. In recent years, I have observed dedicated lecturers being too conscientious in adhering to the dictates of management-administrative whims, resulting in illness and early retirements. Freud said that the goal of psychoanalysis was to get the superego off the back of the ego. Our current top down form of management and rhizomatic form of administration act like the superego on the back of the lecturer's ego, making us feel guilty and giving us a false sense of duty. Realising the fictional nature of these self-referential structures and acting accordingly might be best way of releasing energy to develop the dynamic student/tutor communities that are currently being forged and is where future hope lies .

Maria Walsh is BA fine art theory co-ordinator and a convenor of the subjectivity & feminisms research group at Chelsea College of Art & Design.

This extract was reproduced in Art Monthly's special issue on art education, October 2008/ Issue 320, p10-11.

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