Problems of course

by Bryan Davies
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It would be a difficult 'who done it' to trace the perpetrators of the pedagogic crimes committed in the name of British art education. However the victims and the difficult financial situation they find themselves in once graduated is all too clear. The curator Ute Meta Bauer comments upon the changing face and restructuring of cultural production and it's support structures outside of art colleges for European art graduates in her essay; education, information, entertainment;

'More and more activities devoted to 'earning a living' are becoming incorporated into current forms of art practice, as artists grow weary of neglecting their everyday realities in the hope of achieving the kind of art market success that was possible for even younger artists during the prosperous years of the 1980's'¹

She goes on to state that;

'Prevailing ideas about art and culture at numerous academies and art schools are still based upon the concept of originality and uniqueness of art - art in service of representation and not of society. And there is a widespread lack of recognition of the fact that, in an entirely mediatised environment, new and different complex requirements are imposed upon artistic productions and thus upon their producers. Art schools and, in fact, the community of cultural administrators as a whole have long neglected this development.'²

This is common knowledge to most practitioners, and many continually ask what new curricula and teaching methods could we employ to establish better and more relevant art education? The pedagogic experiment entitled 'proto academy' set out to investigate this area, and I hope a brief but closely read history of it between 1998 and 2001 will give us enough for a more complex understanding of the often suggested solutions and their inherent problems.

Proto academy was initiated as a research project by curator Charles Esche in 1998 at the Edinburgh College of Art. It started a new educational institution for post graduates and recent graduates in art. It chose total reinvention rather than trying to create change through the existing and twisted structures of an already established institution. Proto was set up around some basic ideals, one of these being 'no hierarchy' (actually meaning limited hierarchy with an awareness of itself). In Charles Esche's article on the reinvention of the art academy he sites John Thompson of Goldsmith's College as an example;

'John Thompson... threw the responsibility of the course almost entirely onto the student participants, asking them to invite external teachers and organise discussion groups. Happening at a time when Goldsmiths needed to increase its public profile in the face of massive proposed cuts, this student-led philosophy combined with Damien Hirst's zeal for media techniques came together to produce the beginnings of the 90s British art phenomenon in exhibitions like Freeze, where Taxis were sent to pick up all the major dealers and bring them to the opening.'³

Perhaps throwing the course open to those in it could foster a healthy creative environment. Not over defining teachers and pupils could mean that there is a fair exchange, the pupils are treated from the start as artists, and are expected to take part and practice in exhibitions, debates, host talks, invite speakers. Initiatives could rise from any person in the organisation and reach realisation without having to get the go ahead from the people in power. Ute Meta Bauer points to the figure of the self taught self reliant student that poses critical artistic skills: 'the ability to explore, to experiment and to improvise, to work and think in unconventional ways. By virtue of these qualities, the "figure" I have in mind is predestined to find his or her own vocation in society.'⁴

The second ideal of proto was 'open to all'. Charles Esche again says,
"It may be entirely hypothetical but the possibility the proto academy could provide in years to come is for someone of any age to walk in off the street and, some years later, become a practising, involved, international artist!" ⁵
This too is surely an ideal worth aspiring to if nothing more, free and open education.

What I will describe as Phase 1 of the new academy begins with a group of around 15-20 people meeting, including post graduates, under-graduates and a few people who have left the College. They start to make various kinds of projects. The most defining of which were termed 'summer sessions'. As the studios in the main Edinburgh Art College were empty for the summer it allowed proto academy to use them as a temporary base for 3 week long seminars. Esche felt the need to impart knowledge to the participants and to bring them up to a standard of expectation in line with current contemporary art practice. Charles Esche as an established curator used many of his contacts and brought local, national and international artists and curators to Edinburgh. Things were primarily based on discussion and notions of collaborative activity. The aims of the organisation, and its structure was to be a resource for individuals to become practising artists. The idea of the group is useful because as a collective body you can attract money, international speakers and attention. Yet despite the kinds of discussion going on, it centred around the personality and charisma of Charles Esche. Most others within it were enthusiastic participants to his initiatives.

Phase 2 in 1999-2001 is characterised by more participant led initiatives like the 'Apartment' show. Initiated by those who felt the need for proto academy to try having a more permanent space, a rented flat in the city centre generated a good atmosphere between creating exhibitions, having parties, collaborating to make experiments and theory workshops run by theorist Shepard Steiner. Later that year proto academy initiated what was its third summer session. It was part organised by Edinburgh participants and the students from the host academy, Stuttgart. This series of seminars had about 50 participants, public lecturers, 12 speakers and took place over about 10 days.

From activities like this an international peer group starts to form between Sweden, Scotland and Germany. In this phase there is a good pace of organisational development. It's still growing with a healthy mix created through its relatively small size. Charles Esche is still around and the people in it are starting to get good ideas.

In what I would term as Phase 3, things become more interesting for the sake of this essay. Just after the organisation obtained a new permanent space for 1 year in Edinburgh, Esche was forced through other commitments to spend less and less time in Scotland. This left room for participants to initiative projects however, the level of these projects is what I would term as 'known', as in what comes naturally, without much vision. Studio time for participants, exhibitions, typical 'artist run space' activities. So to keep proto academy as he was imagining it, Esche put in place holding measures in his absence: 2 salaried senior cultural figures as mentors and 1 administrator to deal with funding. These would ensure a level of project work above the norm, and impart a certain vision to the group, as well as fitting the funding criteria.

However problems began to occur caused by bad communication due to the lack of the initiators time, decisions started to be made without proper negotiation. Without a common figurehead or objective real differences of opinion started to evolve within the group. There are now paid and voluntary workers, the later are still running a lot of the organisation and at the same time trying to create projects that would at least pay back a bit by benefiting their own art. These misunderstandings created a lack of coherent identity which combined with the constant presence and requirements of the new space, resulted in it becoming difficult and very confusing for outsiders dealing with proto academy or trying to find entrance into it. Finally that these initial and problematic staffing decisions were made without any consultation could be seen as a misconduct in an organisation that aimed to be non hierarchical, where the participants are meant to be organising, running and developing the projects.

Continuing the examination of this problem in the words of theorist Shepherd Steiner, who wrote in an internal email that the Edinburgh College of Art 'do not- will not -listen' to the work of proto academy, (which is still basically true today) going on to say that 'this is a fundamental problem of any institution - why in fact the institution thrives, how it manages to appropriate ours or anyone else's projects for it's own uses.....This is not the way it works in proto academy because those in power listen to what those not in power have to say.'

Although this was written later at a crucial point of organisational change facilitated by Steiner and Charles Esche, in reality for a long period I think the 'deaf ear'⁶ of the art college also manifested itself in the experiment of the proto academy, and similarly many found ourselves in the same situation that we had felt in the art college, asking why can't we do something about this place? Why are those with the power unable to listen? Was it just bad decision making or is this an unavoidable consequence of an organisation once it reaches a certain level of it's development. Are we seeing in 'stage 3' of proto a demonstration of how these problems begin to grow in institutions?

Responsiveness to the situation is at the heart of this. Of course by making one decision you are stopping another possibility, so there is always the chance that you are making a mistake or acting unethically. In fact the actual act of being aware of one thing blocks awareness of another thing just as the act of representing and the representation in language are thought to block knowledge of the thing one is representing. Does this mean we are going to get screwed up what ever we try, using our current methods of thinking, and speaking. This doesn't bode well for those who believe that there is a happy ending to the re-invention of the art academy. I quickly become pessimistic about the broader stage too, where conversation with the other is the great hope of trade union meetings, conferences, referendums, new NHS management, pro-democracy and ethical capitalism.

Proto academy did in fact know this from the start, cleverly it aimed to continually revamp itself, a continuing process or reassessment, and reinvention, to avoid the pitfalls of one unaware action building upon another creating that tangled web of institutional structures and problems (see NHS for details). However to redefine, reinvent itself, would mean to not allow itself to evolve as an organisation beyond a certain stage and build on the opportunities, experiences and connections it had developed. More fundamentally to know that it was time to redefine itself would require a deep responsiveness to the situation, yet it was the foresight of the impossibility of this responsiveness in evolved institutions that prompted the idea of redefinition in the first place. Basically by the time it got to the point to be revamped it would by nature mean those with the power to do something about it wouldn't realise.

In conclusion therefore, I hope by using this brief example I have illustrated the simple argument that there are no happy endings to problem of; 'What new curricula and teaching methods could we employ to establish better art education?' The problem is in the question. The only employable method coming out of this attempt to reinvent the art college is a fostering of self awareness and criticality of ones own decisions and actions.

In proto this meant all times seeing the process of the problematic project as a most useful lesson, in organisational skills, networks, politics, negotiating, discussion, power dissemination, and in the problematic nature of awareness itself. Proto academy fostered a receptiveness to these things that can only be useful to it's participants in the future. It is sad to say that it is a lesson that the main Edinburgh College of Art and perhaps the art educational system as a whole often undervalues and even tries to put a stop to. This kind of experience doesn't have tangible results in the short term and won't provide something one can mark at the annual degree show, however when it is missing in art education the resulting problems have been year after year clearly framed for all to see.

Notes:

1. Bauer, Ute Meta: Education Information Entertainment. Institut fur gegenwartskunst, Akademie der Bildenden kunste. Vienna 2001. pg 32
2. Bauer: pg 33
3. Esche, Charles: The Proto academy. 1998
4. Bauer: pg 37
5. Bauer: pg34
6. Duval, Steve: Internal email. September 2003

Many thanks to Laura Quarmby and Shepherd Steiner.