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Collaborative practice as an exploratory means to investigate the ‘transformative power of pattern’
Get PDFThis paper explores findings from an experimental workshop in which learners and practitioners worked collaboratively, a shared experience wherein participants investigate approaches to surface pattern design and application. We consider the transformative power of pattern, reconsider the tools we utilise and the potential for pattern to transform beyond the preconceived perception of print to product. From the perspective of a print & surface pattern design degree course, we consider the transposition of two- dimensional pattern to three-dimensional surface and object. We consider the notional boundaries of the discipline whilst challenging and re-inventing process, approaches and potential outcomes, ‘multi-disciplinary’ practices emerge through a transformative pedagogic tool as participants explore their ‘disciplines’ through ‘non-disciplinary’ means. By utilising alternative materials and methodologies which reflect pre-determined practices and knowledge we present an alternative, practical hands on approach to thinking through inherent process. In addition to this we introduce risk-taking, reflection and the opportunity to learn from the unexpected. Learning through experiential methods becomes a means to challenge creative design thinking and problem-solving whilst also encouraging exploration through making and experimentation and collaboration
Perspectives on access to Higher Education: practice and research
No full textAccess to HE is an under researched area there have been a small amount of books which have addressed the topic (Burke, 2002; James and Busher, 2017; Broadhead and Gregson, 2018) and some journal articles (Parry, 1996; Osborne, Leopold and Ferrie, 1997; Reay, Ball and David 2002; Christie, Munro and Wager, 2005). Access programmes have a long history beginning in the 1970s and 1980s and their function to provide an alternative route into higher education is still very relevant in today’s context. Access programmes are an important means of enabling people to improve their life chances. In light of recent findings by The Social Mobility Commission (2017) who have commented on the fall in part-time student numbers over five years by 56%, suggesting that adult students are not able to study, care for dependents and work concurrently. The Commission also found that that over the last five years 1.2 million students from low-income homes have left school without five good GCSEs. As more careers require higher education qualifications, people who have not achieved level three accreditation (conventionally in the UK A levels) will need to find alternative ways of entering higher education. Access to Higher Education courses are still needed in today’s Britain as are other enabling courses in other parts of the globe.
Access to HE has been through many changes since their beginning in the 1970s. These include the introduction of Access Validating Agencies; the introduction of regional frameworks; the standardisation of credits required to gain an Access certificate and the grading of individual credits. What is the state of Access to HE in the 21st century? This question needs to be addressed as adult learners seek to access higher education to increase their life chances and social mobility. This book evaluates some of the recent changes and argues that Access education is alive and kicking because of its diversity; serving different people in different ways. As much of the research in this book is carried out by practitioners and researchers who have worked in access education; their unique and valuable analysis is grounded in authentic experience
‘Their defining moments’: Identifying critical influences for progression into post compulsory education in the Arts.
Get PDFThe challenges of widening participation (WP) practice within the field of the arts are presented. Expanding on Bourdieu’s (1973) cultural, social and economic capitals, it investigates how good, democratic (Broadhead and Gregson. 2018), emancipatory (Biesta. 2013) or compensatory education (Bernstein. 1996) can/ cannot/ alone overcome society’s constraints to attain upward social mobility. It is a quandary that has been argued by Bernstein (1970), Gorard (2010) and Coffield and Williamson (2012 p.64). The question for Widening participation (WP) practitioners and practitioner researchers is: ‘Can WP compensate for society?’ The reality of the complexity and messiness of WP practice, to create meaningful change, is in contrast to the ‘should-ist’ approach of policy and regulatory guidance. Practitioners are tasked to deliver WP interventions, targeting specified under-represented groups to create measureable impact. The directives are to create conditions so that progression into and through post compulsory education becomes viable. However the challenges are how to surmount multiple overlapping hurdles that hinder individuals, families and communities attaining the capacity to progress in education. Interventions with groups, identified through single labels of disadvantage, maybe further complicated by other disadvantages being present in their lives. The difficulties faced may be underestimated or overlooked by an uncritical acceptance of the overly simplistic nomenclature. This complexity is demonstrated in the Children’s Commissioners Report (2018). The empirical data had its own challenges of overlapping criteria, limitations of datasets, a ‘toxic trio’ of vulnerabilities and ‘hidden’ individuals who are not counted. To interpret the impact of effective interventions, as a constant iteration, through reflection and refinement of WP, are important parts of practice. This can be achieved through a hermeneutical interpretivist approach, influenced by John Dewey’s (1933) pragmatism. The research method has been narrative enquiry (Clandinin and Connelly 2000) with critical incidents technique (CIT) (Flanagan. 1954). Semi-structured interviews with ‘storytelling prompts’ (Gremler 2004 in Spencer Oatey 2013, pp81-82) of highly engaged arts students, who were involved in WP delivery, provide a series of rich case studies. Emergent themes provide insights into their experiences and tribulations. The accounts reveal an array of factors encountered in their paths into post compulsory education. Their voices shape the design of timely and influential experiences that offer positive learning opportunities for its participants. Outreach pedagogy needs to be bespoke, responsive to its context, at a level that is appropriate for its recipients, at the stage of their education pathway that they find themselves at
‘Should I, shouldn’t I?’: A self-reflexive study in unpacking ideologies of race while devising a critical studies fine art programme
Get PDFThis chapter develops British journalist Kurt Barling’s (2015) provocative statement in order to think about race and its associated systems of oppression in what may be deemed as an equally controversial or a less desirable way. Barling’s The ‘R’ Word challenges us to imagine moving beyond race as a fixed identity construct. He unpicks the way in which matters which may not have anything to do with race often get taken up as such, due to the practice of ‘race-thinking’ as a type of systemic way of thinking that reduces all human variation and interaction to ‘one stable variable associated with an individual, namely their “race”’ (Barling, 2015: 148). Then, in taking the idea of race-thinking further, whether it be a social practice or group, he discusses the practice of ‘racialisation’, as a historically specific ideological process which transposes racial meaning onto a previously non-racial relation. This chapter gives a counter perspective to the dominant ways in which we understand racial oppression, within the context of inclusion and diversity debates. It does not focus solely on how white people are eternal oppressors but, rather, focuses on showing how non-white bodies can also occupy such spaces, by unpacking these ideologies of race, and legacies of whiteness. Whiteness as a privileged system of power has historically benefited some white bodies, whilst excluding others. As Henry (2007) points out crucially in Whiteness Made Simple, whiteness operates ‘as a conceptual framework and not a mere way to describe white people which is where I think many fail to have the right conversation and thus draw the wrong conclusions as they focus on complexion and not on a system of power’ (Henry, 2007: 160). By engaging with intersectionality as an analytic tool to unpick overlapping social categories (Collins, P. and Bilge, S. (2016), we can begin to unpack ideologies of race that limit whiteness and blackness to a matter of skin colour, or that make matters of race synonymous with discussions for and about Black people. We can do this by focusing on the right conversation, the systems of power and oppression, and the ‘autonomy of the individual’ within these dynamics. I take an interdisciplinary approach to these debates, drawing on the thinking of key theorists from a range of disciplines that range across critical race theory and cultural studies, critical pedagogy, gender studies and fine art practice and theory. However, I focus particularly on two major thinkers for whom destabilizing power relations within an educational context and liberationist thinking: the feminist and social activist bell hooks and Brazilian educationalist liberation thinker Paulo Freire
A case study of collaborative practice: working to promote cross-curricular thinking and making within schools.
Get PDFWithin the changing landscape of secondary education, the role of making and creative thinking is increasingly marginalised within the curriculum. As a result, we are seeing an emerging skills shortage for those contemplating studying not just fashion and textiles or other creative disciplines but also courses that value the ability to work creatively and blend a mix of attributes at a higher level. The case study outlined in this short paper, documents a project undertaken as part of the Crafts Council’s (2017) Make Your Future initiative which looks to partner schools, art teachers, makers and higher education institutes, with the aim of promoting craft and making to the next generation. The project saw Wadkin and Pratt collaborate with a selection of key stage 3 students across two schools, with the aim of encouraging greater take up of Textiles and Fashion as a GCSE subject, helping to develop essential skills for creative thinking and improving motor skills in relation to making. Drawing upon the textile heritage of the North of England, United Kingdom (UK), students developed contemporary fashion print outcomes that reinterpreted traditional woven textile techniques for the sportswear market. The focus was on improving hand skills through analogue design methods, while linking with technology, science and mathematical concepts to further cross-disciplinary thinking. In addition, key stage 3 students involved with the project were introduced to roles within textiles and fashion not currently explored within the curriculum. The project culminated in a collaborative exhibition at Leeds Arts University, celebrating the work produced across a number of institutes involved in similar projects across the region. As a result of this project, participants were given the opportunity to develop and explore competences required within the fashion and textile industries thus promoting the need for universities to work with schools in order to protect creative education, foster essential skills and inspire the next generation of designers and creative thinkers
[Im]moral food
No full textWhat do popular Instagram posts of food communicate about the morality of health in Neoliberal Capitalist Societies?
This slideshow of appropriated Instagram posts demarcates the visual identity and linguistic tropes attached to contemporary moralising rhetoric around food, which has become a mainstay of social media platform Instagram’s pictorial oeuvre. This simplistic division of foods into those which are good and those which are bad is often accompanied by deeper moral judgement of ways of living and a quasi-religious partition between the clean and the unclean. Such damning ideology is symptomatic of the neoliberal agenda of individualisation, which places full responsibility for physical and mental health and wellbeing at the level of the individual; an ideology which conceals the social and economic complexity of the choices we make about our food and lifestyle.
Commodified and spectacularised, the ‘healthy body’ acts as a sign-value for success, a strong work ethic and self-control; viewed as a productive resource and medium for creating ‘bodily capital’. By the same token, the unhealthy, shamed body: traditionally working class, poor, and other marginalized people; ‘are subjected to the “bio-power” of experts who impose upon these bodies judgments that explain their pathologies and failures’. On Instagram this logic is further codified into the semiotics of food, and underscored by accompanying hashtags. These hashtags sparingly spell out the user’s values through direction to others on how to behave, whilst also serving to affirm allegiances with virtual communities bound by these shared values through incantation like repetition of use. Through the use of hashtags a seemingly innocuous image of a meal is incorporated into a wider, ongoing dialogue about bodies, health and personal responsibility, and a private act becomes a public statement.
The slideshow of appropriated Instagram photographs of food represents a snapshot of this dialogue, emphasising the moralising binaries between healthy and unhealthy, good and bad, clean and unclean
‘Their defining moments: narratives of critical incidents and key influences that prompted progression into post compulsory education in the arts’
Get PDFThe ontological position of this study focuses upon prevalent inequalities of access into post compulsory education. How individuals’ who may be experiencing multiple factors of disadvantage can surmount barriers that limit their upward social mobility. Access, participation and success through post compulsory education into secure employment is considered the solution. This thesis argues that it is necessary to consider how the home context, location, health, welfare and financial security of an individual and their family are highly influential factors. The literature review identifies key texts from a number of perspectives; including education, philosophy, psychology and sociology. The review of the canon of literature addresses the question whether education can, or cannot, compensate for society or achieve it in isolation of other agencies interventions. (Bernstein, 1970. Gorard, 2010. Coffield and Willliamson, 2011). The research question underpinned by the key literature subsequently becomes: ‘Can widening participation (WP) interventions begin to compensate for society and education?’ The research design is within the context of an Arts specialist institution. It provides a lens on progression into a subject that is experiencing systemic marginalisation within the curriculum. An interpretivist, dialectical and hermeneutical approach is taken. The case studies bring together authentic accounts of lived experiences. The hermeneutical analysis then occurs at several levels; the students’ own accounts, the researcher’s transcription and analysis of their stories and the reader’s interpretation on reading the research. The epistemological position taken is pragmatic, logical and rational; giving an interpretation of what is real, in the context of society, education and the arts. The research population are highly engaged students who have contributed high levels of studentship beyond their course, demonstrated by employment as Progression Student Ambassadors, Student Union activism or work experience through extra-curricular commissions. The narratives identify participants’ ‘critical incidences’, gathering personal stories of recalled experiences. The limitations of the study is its time constraints, the sample size and a single subject field, however the qualitative findings are transferable across the whole education field. Impact of this practitioner-research is occurring at many levels; personally, professionally, upon the WP team, the institution and informing a wider community of WP practitioners
How to make a body
Get PDFWhat can a body do? This question is posited to the book-object. This essay argues that such an object, long considered passive and constrained by its bindings – the finished product – has the potential to move outside of these boundaries. The ideas situated in this essay pull from the writing of feminist scholars and new materialist thought; and is specifically anchored by political theorist Jane Bennett’s concepts outlined in the book Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010). Bennett points out that thinking of molecules as ‘lively’ or ‘vibrant’ releases the protocols of the ‘body’ and the ‘organism’ from its presiding biological definitions, allowing us to explode its material edge. Utilising this idea as a lens to reimagine and reinterpret the book-object, this text explores how book-objects challenge prevailing definitions of subject and object by working performatively. Looking at the artwork and journals of Helen Chadwick alongside selected self-initiated work, this essay proposes that ‘object-things’, such as books, have a certain material agency. As such – expanding upon the initial question – this text asks: what can a book-body do
BEINGS
Get PDFBEINGS has been published by Salt n Pepper Press to coincide with an exhibition held at Village bookstore in Leeds as part of Index Festival, a series of fringe events alongside Yorkshire Sculpture International. Village hosted a series of photographic exhibitions focused around sculpture and form. As a project it adds to the conversation about how photographic images speak about the sculptural nature of their subject, and in fact contribute to a transformation of 'things' into something that can be interpreted as sculptural objects. Objects come into being with an intended purpose; a reason to exist. This ‘stuff’ then sloshes around the everyday, like detritus: sometimes being useful (as intended); sometimes just being stuff. The area outside these two states is like a transformation, when an object or an environment can be seen as a separate entity from its particular function. In BEINGS, objects and environments are what they appear to be; a cheese pot, a ladder, a piece of laminate flooring, a road. However, they are also constituent parts of a larger whole, like the matter from which they are themselves made. Where these object-particles collide they create something new that is without a particular purpose, but which takes on a new sculptural form. In this context of remixing the everyday, some subjects instead sit as-found. Sitting in the glow of their reconfigured counterparts, they are somehow altered by association. They have a sculptural potential radiating beyond their use-function
Aging in our eyes and in our fingers
No full textThe output is an online journal article reflecting on the author’s continuing art practice. Research process: A continuing exploration of allegorical visual narrative to communicate experiences. The research consisted of a series of imaginative drawings made in response to an aging body and memories of childhood. This series of artworks has begun to embody information emerging from research into aging and memory, both as practice-based drawing research and as research undertaken as part of a community group that has been looking at how to manage the aging process. Research insights: Allegorical narratives about aging can be used within various formats, from an exhibition of large scale drawings, to presentations to focus groups and to theoretically sophisticated audiences who read about drawing. The use of text to reflect upon drawings, alongside spoken word presentations has allowed the allegorical potential of the work to reach a much wider audience than working in any one area. In particular older people have been brought into dialogue with the work, because of giving more presentations to older peoples’ groups. The further development of conversations about how it feels to inhabit an aging human body continues to open out new directions for practice. The artist is now researching how somatic perceptions can be visualised and brought into allegorical narratives and a recent commission to produce work exploring how to visualise the body for a variety of health and socially engaged community practices has provided more materials for future work. Dissemination: The exhibition of the original drawings and associated ceramics was held in Chapeltown and was attended by over 200 people, a blog post about the research was hosted by ‘Life hacks for a limited future’ as part of the Leeds Older People’s Forum and Barker has spoken about this work at research seminars