Blogs – Katriona Beales PG CERT

IP Unit: Race – Challenging the Room of Silence

It’s difficult to write anything meaningful about race as a white academic in a position of leadership in Higher Education, let alone in a mere 500 words. In attempting to do so, what follows is part of a personal commitment towards allyship and a wish to be held accountable to the on-going responsibility to continue to educate myself. I do this as a human being, and to best serve all the global majority [1] students [after Campbell-Stevens (2020)] that are on the 2^nd Year of the BA Fine Art at Chelsea.

In the “The Room of Silence,” a short documentary about race, identity and marginalization at the Rhode Island School of Design, RSID alumni Eloise Sherrid uses students’ firsthand testimonials to expose what it feels like to be on the receiving end of white privilege in a familiar art school format; the crit. In the video, students talk through common experiences of being met with a ‘room of silence’ in response to works about race or cultural identity. As one of them elucidates “if no one wants to say anything how are we going to get any feedback?” And another, “I need you to say something about this, otherwise how am I supposed to learn?” The video illuminates how white students’ and academics’ lack of racial and cultural literacy means that often global majority students’ work is met with silence. Students repeatedly share about their experiences of not receiving critical feedback, even when are asking for it, and how damaging this was.

This is not an experience confined to US design students. One of CSM’s 2024 Changemakers Hugette Tchiapi outlines her experiences of exactly the same situation whilst studying Fashion. “Imagine the scenario. You are a Black fashion student developing an assessed project that has specific roots in your culture or ancestry. As your tutorials progress, it becomes clear that your assigned tutor lacks the foundational knowledge to be able to deliver clear, meaningful feedback on your project. Meanwhile, your peers are given numerous references from their feedback sessions. They move forward with multiple conceptual frameworks and ideas that they can use to strengthen their project. Your tutorial feedback notes are filled with gaps.”

Simply, tutor and peers’ lack of cultural and racial literacy damage the learning environment and outcomes for Global Majority students. Hugette has used her experiences to devise Fashion FeedBlack, a tool for designing inclusive crits [2].

According to the Ethnic Representation Index [Mba et al (2023)], UAL has 30.9% BAME students (sector-wide terminology) and an awarding gap of 10.9%. It is clear there is much to do. Rethinking crits so they are more racially and culturally literate is one place to start.

Action:

Develop a Fine Art inclusive crit pedagogy focusing on asking questions rather than making assumptions.

Prioritise my own ongoing education in areas of cultural or racial ignorance.

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References:

Black Artists and Designers (BAAD) and Sherrid, Eloise, “The Room of Silence” (2016). Racial Justice. 18.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/archives_activism_racialjustice/18

Channel 4 Entertainment. (2020, June 30). Heartbreaking moment when kids learn about white privilege | the school that tried to end racism [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I3wJ7pJUjg

Campbell-Stephens, R. (2020). Global Majority; Decolonising the Language and Reframing the Conversation about Race. [online] Available at: https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/-/media/files/schools/school-of-education/final-leeds-beckett-1102-global-majority.pdf.

Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

Mba, D., Lloyd-Bardsley, C., Weigel, A. and Longville, S. (n.d.). Ethnic Representation Index 2023. [online] Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/410212/ERI-Ethnic-Representation-Index-2023-PDF-1.2MB.pdf. Access the ERI 2023 data here: https://public.tableau.com/views/ERI2023Published/ERIDashboard?:language=en-US&:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link&publish=yes&%3AshowVizHome=no#1

TEDx Talks. (2023, March 2). Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right | Asif Sadiq | TEDxCroydon [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw

Tchiapi, Hugette (2024) in CSM Changemakers Publication https://learnteachcsm.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2024/07/CSM-Changemakers-2024-Publication-online.pdf

The Telegraph. (2022, August 5). Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU

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[1] “Global Majority is a collective term that first and foremost speaks to and encourages those so-called to think of themselves as belonging to the global majority. It refers to people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’. Globally, these groups currently represent approximately eighty per cent (80%) of the world’s population” p.1 Rosemary Campbell-Stevens (2020) see Bibliography for full citation.

[2] See https://learnteachcsm.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2024/07/CSM-Changemakers-2024-Publication-online.pdf

IP Unit: Faith (Prefer not to say?)

The UAL Dashboard shows that across at Chelsea specifically, 58.1% of students stated they had no religion. Of those who identified as having a religion, the three largest categories where Christian (11.7%), Prefer not to say (9.6%) and Muslim (6.1%).

The shortcomings of the data collection that UAL does around protected characteristics prevent any engagement with an intersectional analysis of these figures as each characteristic is treated as a standalone category. No analysis is possible about how much those who identify as having a religion overlap with other protected characteristics such as race and ethnicity. This creates a lack of comprehension, even institutional blindness, of where there may be layers of systematic discrimination e.g. for the black female Muslim Curating student I met at a recent opening.

I am personally interested in the ‘prefer not to say’ category. Building from my Disability blog I wonder again about non-disclosure in these contexts. The students selecting this option have chosen to identify themselves as having a religion but would ‘prefer not to say’. Why is this? Is it personal preference or the fear of institutional or peer bias? As Nicole Brown (2022) has pointed out in relation to disclosing Disability status, there is a cost-benefit analysis that is happening in these hidden moments of decision-making. There are questions to be asked here about why the cost is too high to disclose, and what the institution can do to be a space that is inclusive of faith as a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act.

Some of this hesitancy is likely driven by what is happening in the wider socio-political sphere, what Simran Jeet Singh (2025) identifies as fearmongering about religious groups by politicians to accrue power. Whilst Singh is talking about his own context in the US, similar prejudice is very evident in the Islamophobia in political discourse in the UK. A most recent example is Keir Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ speech that drew parallels with Enoch Powell (Syal 2025). This is complicated by high profile British Muslims publicly supporting Reform, such as the party’s Chair Zia Yusuf, and much of the last decade of anti-immigration rhetoric spearheaded by other prominent Muslim figures like Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.

I would speculate that another contributory factor in the ‘prefer not to say’ choice, is the paucity of attention given to religion in the wider fields of both arts academia and contemporary art practice. Whilst there is a contemporary trend (with strong art historical antecedents) towards pagan and occult expression in art practice (see Marciniak (2019), established religions as a serious area of contemporary practice and research are quite a non-sequitur. As Gilbert et al argue in an interesting study in the field of cultural geography “religion has been given little or no attention in academic discussions of vernacular creativity, while arts policy as it developed in the United Kingdom in the post-war period has had a strongly secular focus” [Gilbert et al (2018) p.1].

These observations aside, the historic oppressions, persecutions, genocides, corruptions and colonising done by established religions surely holds responsibility for the secular turn. I have my own, at times conflicted, positionality to consider here as a white person who does have a personal faith, yet is strongly LGBTQ+ inclusive and wants to actively play a part in decolonisation, and as an artist in the field of contemporary art practice.

UAL generally has a strongly secular feel, with religious holidays often the taking place without interrupting the academic calendar. An example of how this impacts students came to my attention recently, when one of my exchange students who comes from an Italian institution queried why Easter didn’t align with the UAL Spring Break, as it meant she was unable to go home to celebrate the most important holiday of her year with her Catholic family.

Another issue I have found at UAL is that the Quiet Space and Prayer Room facilities are one and the same. The designated space at Chelsea is in a small, dark and quite damp room in the basement of C-Block. It is supposed to be open but is often locked and needs a key code to access it. This one room is the place that students of faith are supposed to pray in, and the one that Disabled and Neurodivergent students are to use if they are feeling overwhelmed. I don’t think these uses are compatible and so neither group are adequately catered for.

As an action moving forwards, I am going to set up a meeting to start a dialogue with the multi-faith chaplaincy team to understand their role more, and how we can work together to support an inclusive environment for people of faith or none on the 2Y of the BA Fine Art.

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Bibliography

Akhtar, P. (2025) Zia Yusuf: The British Muslim Driving Reform’s transformation into an election winner, The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/zia-yusuf-the-british-muslim-driving-reforms-transformation-into-an-election-winner-256003 (Accessed: 26 May 2025).

Brown, N. (2022) Wellbeing in higher education podcast: Ableism, Dr Nicole Brown. Available at: https://www.nicole-brown.co.uk/wellbeing-podcast/ (Accessed: 23 May 2025).

Gilbert, D. et al. (2018) ‘The hidden geographies of religious creativity: Place-making and material culture in west london faith communities’, cultural geographies, 26(1), pp. 23–41. doi:10.1177/1474474018787278.

Marciniak, C. (2019) Wicked! modern art’s interest in the occult, Frieze. Available at: https://www.frieze.com/article/wicked-modern-arts-interest-occult (Accessed: 26 May 2025).

Singh, S. (2025) Challenging Race, Religion, and Stereotypes in Classroom, Trinity University, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CAOKTo_DOk (Accessed: 26 May 2025).

Syal, R. (2025) Starmer accused of echoing far right with ‘island of strangers’ speech, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/12/keir-starmer-defends-plans-to-curb-net-migration (Accessed: 26 May 2025).

UAL Dashboard Data 24-25 (Accessed 26 May 2025)

IP Unit: Hidden Disability and Mental Health

According to the UAL Dashboard, across CCW 18% of our students have declared a Disability. Chelsea specifically has a slightly higher rate with 18.5% of our students having declared a Disability, of whom 3.4% declared a Mental Health condition. These statistics are at odds to the general populace. In terms of Mental Health alone, a 2023 survey [see Baker and Kirk-Wade (2024)] found that among those aged 17 to 19, 10% had a probable mental disorder in 2017, rising to 23% in 2023 (emphasis mine). In 2025, these are the 19-21 year olds on the 2nd Year (2Y) of the BA Fine Art.

I don’t have space here to unpack all the reasons behind the sharp rise in mental ill health amongst young people, but research shows that COVID and the climate crisis are contributory factors [Lawrance et all (2022)]. In terms of mental health alone, there is a disconnect of around 20% between the national statistics (23%) and the student disclosed statistics at Chelsea (3.4%). From my experience as Year leader for 2Y, I would say the national picture is a much more accurate reflection of my students’ mental health.

As educators the mental health of our students has a direct impact on how students engage with us and learn, and should impact our pedagogy. Hence, the non-disclosure of students’ mental health conditions raises particular challenges. Whilst visible Disabilities have their own distinct concerns, particularly in a building as inaccessible as Chelsea’s, I am concerned that invisible Disabilities are remaining hidden in a context where students must disclose in order to be seen. Why, as these statistics suggest, are students unwilling to disclosure? There is support (albeit limited) via the Disability service, and students with an ISA (Individual Support Agreement) can get two-week extensions on deadlines.

A starting point to truly trying to address students’ reluctance to disclose would be to understand more fully, the personal and external barriers students face that prevent them from doing so. As Moriña summarises the most common external factor students’ identity is faculty themselves. “Many students with invisible disabilities find that faculty members are neither informed nor trained to support them and contribute to their inclusion.” [Moriña (2022) p.919]

Dr Nicole Brown has raised this as a critical issue, asking how visible people with Disabilities in teaching or academia are [see Brown (2018)]. If students can’t see themselves represented in staff, how can we say we are truly creating inclusive environments for teaching? This creates a self-fulfilling cycle where ableism is not tackled. Are students choosing not to disclosure their Disability due to the perceived cost of being stigmatised, marginalised and categorised in a context where they are not represented? This might be particularly true in the case of mental health where there are strong social stigmas at play, particularly when we take into consideration different intersectional cultural, class and gender-based factors.

What is clear to me, is that in my role at UAL I have the opportunity and responsibility to visibilise my own invisible Disabilities. By doing so, I can contribute to a more inclusive working and learning culture at UAL, for both staff and students.

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Bibiliography

Baker, C. and Kirk-Wade, E. (2024) Mental health statistics: Prevalence, services and funding in England – House of Commons Library, House of Commons Library, UK Parliament. Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06988/ (Accessed: 26 May 2025).

Brown, N. (2022) Wellbeing in higher education podcast: Ableism, Dr Nicole Brown. Available at: https://www.nicole-brown.co.uk/wellbeing-podcast/ (Accessed: 23 May 2025).

Brown, N. and Leigh, J. (2018) ‘Ableism in academia: Where are the disabled and ill academics?’, Disability & Society, 33(6), pp. 985–989. doi:10.1080/09687599.2018.1455627.

Lawrance, E.L. et al. (2022) ‘Psychological responses, mental health, and sense of agency for the dual challenges of climate change and the covid-19 pandemic in young people in the UK: An online survey study’, The Lancet Planetary Health, 6(9), pp. 726–738. doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(22)00172-3.

Moriña, A. (2022). When what is unseen does not exist: disclosure, barriers and supports for students with invisible disabilities in higher education. Disability & Society, 39(4), 914–932. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2022.2113038

UAL Dashboard (Accessed 26 May 2025)

Blog post 4 : Ambiguous Pedagogies, Uncertain Territories

Annie Davey’s (2016) article ‘International Students and Ambiguous Pedagogies within the UK Art School’ raises all sorts of questions about the assumptions at play underneath the fine art pedagogy prevalent in Chelsea and most art schools. I am not only involved in teaching some of these assumptions but also have been taught them myself, through my foundation (2000-01) undergraduate studies at Liverpool School of Art (2001-05) and then at Chelsea where I did a PGDip and MA in Fine Art (2010-11).

Actively not knowing is a central part of the way contemporary artistic practice is configured, drawing heavily on the legacy of conceptualism. My own approach has been influenced by contributing to a research group set up by Jacob Jacobsen to explore John Latham’s idea of AntiKnow (Jacobsen 2006), see images below.

Davey’s article draws on Austerlitz and I followed the research trail to read ‘Mind the Gap’ Austerlitz et al’s (2008) article. “Students entering higher education often seek ‘clarity’ but a central, although largely unspoken tenet of art and design pedagogy would appear to be the centrality of ‘ambiguity’ to the creative process.” [p.127 Austerlitz et al (2008)].

This quote echoed two conversations I recently had with students following their Unit 6 feedback. Both are engaged international students with English as their first language. Both had received B (very good under the UAL Level 5 Marking Matrix). Both were unhappy with this, and wanted to know exactly how to get an A. They wanted clarity and whilst at least one of them was dissatisfied with the ambiguity I was offering in return. “…For those students unfamiliar with the benefits of risk and for whom uncertainty feels far from necessary, productive state these implicit values can be met with confusion and diminished confidence” [Davey (2016) p.380].

There are invisible barriers at play. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback about the course from students, but I recently received some that evidenced that some students felt very much at sea in this ambiguity. I hosted an open meeting welcoming anyone who wanted to voice any frustrations or concerns, and it was illuminating. What became clear was that some students who have not benefited from an arts-based education prior to starting their BA, feel really lost by the ambiguous nature of what we are asking them to do.

Perhaps one of the tasks is to fully conceptualise what our ambiguous pedagogy is, and to do this we must clearly define what we mean by ambiguity. “Rowland argues that there are two different kinds of ambiguity and makes the distinction between vagueness and uncertainty (Rowland 2003). This allows us to differentiate between not taking the process far enough to identify issues and possibilities (vagueness) and the recognition of multiplicity of routes and interpretations with porous boundaries (uncertainty)… There is also a danger of inauthentic ambiguity where there is a discourse of acceptance of diverse outcomes but beneath is a hidden curriculum open only to the privileged few.” [p.142 Austerlitz et al (2008)]. This is a very helpful distinction between vagueness and uncertainty, and one I will be taking forward as I develop the pedagogical frame for Year 2.

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References:

Austerlitz, Noam, Blythman, Margo, Grove-White, Annie, Jones, Barbara Anne, Jones, Carol An, Morgan, Sally, Orr, Susan, Shreeve, Alison and Vaughn, Suzi (2008) Mind the gap: expectations, ambiguity and pedagogy within art and design higher education. In: Drew, Linda, (ed.) The Student Experience in Art and Design Higher Education: Drivers for Change. Cambridge, Jill Rogers Associates Limited, pp. 124-148

Davey, A. (2016). International Students and Ambiguous Pedagogies within the UK Art School. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 35(3), pp.377–383. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12124.

Flattimeho.org.uk. (2025). ANTIKNOW RESEARCH REPORT | Projects | Flat Time House. [online] Available at: https://flattimeho.org.uk/projects/publications/anti-know-research-report/ [Accessed 18 Mar. 2025].

Jakobsen, J. ed. (2006) ‘ANTIKNOW RESEARCH REPORT’ published by FlatTime Ho

Blog Post 3 : What do formal educational settings have to learn from alternative pedagogical spaces?

My own teaching practice is informed by over a decade of experience as an artist educator in museums, galleries and alternative education spaces such as PRUs (Pupil Referral Units). Most of these projects were about facilitating creative learning in unaccredited but deeply important ways. One of the most significant was Supersmashers, an after-school arts club for care-experienced children in partnership with social services at South London Gallery. I was the lead artist on this project for 2013-15, and it deeply impacted my teaching practice; developing pedagogies about inclusivity, materials-based enquiry and the importance of play. Now my energies are focused in H.E. I still want to bring some of the energy and vitality of these alternative creative learning spaces with me.

On the 11^th of March I went to the book launch of Anna Colin’s ‘Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: from Utopia to Institutionalisation’, where Colin’s reflects on her own experiences of setting up and then running the alternative art school Open School East between 2013 – 2021.

Before I go on, I do have a fundamental question about how appropriate it is for formal educational settings to borrow from these alternative contexts? Is it a form of colonisation, the co-opting of the outside by institutions? My motivation is that I still want to be about creating possibilities as a human being, a parent, an artist, and a ‘teacher’. Within the formal education context, we are still, supposedly, about experimentation and creating possibilities and I think there is much to learn from alternative education spaces. As bell hooks (1994) writes,

The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility, we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom. (Ibid, p. 207)

At the book launch Anna in conversation with Cindy Sissokho reflected on the necessity of reconfiguring the ‘how’ of the institution and as part of that a reworking of the notion of time. Colin (2025) surmises Barbara Adam “linear time (clock time, machine time, synonymous with temporal efficiency) is indifferent to change and infinite insofar as it excludes the concept of becoming” [Ibid p.109-10]. Art school is precisely about the process of becoming, and as such we must find ways of reconfiguring this linearity of time into something more fluid, more multi-modal and more playful. Anna raised the question as to whether institutional bureaucratic slowness can be reappropriated as a slow practice, akin to garden time.

Biesta (2022) argues that education is a practice of cultivation, drawing on Dewey; “His [Dewey’s] argument is that ‘since growth is the characteristic of life, education is all one with growing; it has no end beyond itself” [Ibid p.31]. This way of thinking about education as an organic process of cultivation opens many rich possibilities that move beyond the limits of the institution.

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References:

Biesta, G. (2021). World-Centred Education. Routledge.

Colin, A. (2025). Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization. MIT Press.

hooks, b (1994) Teaching to Transgress : Education As the Practice of Freedom, Taylor & Francis Group, ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=1656118.
Created from ual on 2025-03-12 11:20:09.

Goldsmithscca.art. (2025). Goldsmiths CCA — Alternative Pedagogical Spaces: From Utopia to Institutionalization event page [online] Available at: https://goldsmithscca.art/event/alternative-pedagogical-spaces-from-utopia-to-institutionalization/ [Accessed 11 Mar. 2025].

Blog post 2 : Why is an Intersectional Feminist approach important in my role?

Over 80% of my Y2 cohort are female or identify as women. Many are trying to interrogate ideas in their practices that have a direct correlation to areas of feminist work; gender, identity, care, childhood, labour and community. Still, the majority would not describe themselves as feminist. They largely haven’t received any kind of feminist teaching and mostly lack a basic understanding of feminist thinking.

In the Representation of Women Artists in the UK (2021) several illuminating statistics are uncovered. The report details how, despite record numbers of women studying Art & Design at GCSE, A Level and undergraduate (much higher than the numbers of men, at 65%, 74% and 66%) there persist systemic gender inequalities within the art world. This is carefully evidenced. For example;

In 2021 just 36% of the artworks acquired by Tate were by women artists.

In 2021 only four new works entered the collection of the National Gallery, there was not a single work by a woman artist, a Black and Brown artist or a disabled artist

In 2021 majority of artists represented by London’s major commercial galleries are still men, at 67% – an increase of 2% from the previous year.

Over 95% of my students in Y2 are under the age of 25. 2024 research from Kings College London shows Gen Z men and women are the most divided on gender equality, compared to older generations. Whilst it is often assumed that the feminist project is somehow complete, these reports paint a regressive picture of widening gender inequality in attitudes, behaviour and in career progression. Shockingly, in 2024 police declared violence against women and girls (VAWG) a ‘national emergency’ in England and Wales. Recorded cases of VAWG increased by 37% between 2018 and 2023, running at 3,000 offences a day [Home Office (2024)] .

Against this backdrop and a socio-political imperative to re-centre feminist thinking, much feminist thought is directly relevant to fine art pedagogy in the way it rethinks the frame, opens alternative narratives and creates space to hold minioritised voices. Intersectionality is a central idea in this context, a term first coined by Kimberle Crenshaw [Crenshaw (1989)]. Intersectionality applies to class and sexuality, disability, and all the other Equality Strands and is a way of conceptualising and understanding the interlocking way different types of discrimination affect an individual. It’s a very helpful concept in helping me understand some of the systemic challenges facing some of my students.

These discussions are particularly relevant within a neo-liberal formulation of Higher Education. As Motta (2013) summarises,

“Neoliberal marketization in Higher Education marks an intensification, not a break, with the epistemological logics of patriarchal colonial capitalism… The ideal type neoliberal subject is grounded in individualization, infinite flexibility, precarious commitments, orientated toward survivalist competition and personally profitable exchanges. This produces a space of hierarchy, competition and individualism through the eradication of spaces of solidarity, care and community.” [ibid p.

I want to intentionally create spaces of solidarity and community amongst my student cohort and this is precisely why collective working, pedagogies of care and intersectional feminist thinking is a key part of my ethos in my role as 2nd Year Leader.

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References:

Bonham-Carter, C. (2021). Representation of Women Artists in the UK During 2021. [online] Available at: https://freelandsfoundation.imgix.net/documents/Representation-of-Women-Artists-in-the-UK-Research-in-2021.pdf. [17 Mar 2025]

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: a Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, [online] 1989(1), pp.139–167. Available at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf. [17 Mar 2025]

Home Office (2024). Violence against women and girls national statement of expectations (accessible). Department of Health. [online] 30 Apr. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/violence-against-women-and-girls-national-statement-of-expectations-and-commissioning-toolkit/violence-against-women-and-girls-national-statement-of-expectations-accessible. [17 Mar 2025]

Kings College London (2025). Gen Z men and women most divided on gender equality, global study shows. [online] King’s College London. Available at: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/gen-z-men-and-women-most-divided-on-gender-equality-global-study-shows [17 Mar 2025]

Motta, S (2013) ‘Pedagogies of Possibility: In, against and beyond the Imperial Patriarchal Subjectivities of Higher Education’ in Cowden, S, & Singh, G 2013, Acts of Knowing : Critical Pedagogy in, Against and Beyond the University, Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, New York. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [16 March 2025].

Blog Post 1 : Thoughts on Induction

During the induction, I was feeling very tired, almost delirious, and my eye was struggling with a rapidly flickering projector. I have a coloboma in my right eye [see RNIB (N.D.)]. This birth defect means that I struggle to regulate light intake in this eye, and it can trigger serious migraines. In most contexts where I can regulate light, I am not Disabled under the social model of Disability [Scope (2024)]. I can make a series of adjustments so that the environment is not disabling. I can turn off lights or use a dim computer screen or draw the blinds or wear sunglasses… In this context, despite asking, there was nothing that could (?) be done and the screen was left flickering in a way that meant I struggled to participate or stay in the room.

I became Disabled by the environment and the lack of reasonable adjustments that were put in place. I found this a weirdly hostile experience for my first induction into the PGCert. It made me reflect on how important these interactions are and how quickly certain ‘scripts’ can get set within teaching environments. I found initially being vocal about my visual impairment meant that I felt vocal about other things, and I ended up feeling like I had been quite disruptive.

I wonder about being the disruptive one. Rigid environments demand a certain kind of behaviour; compliance. But what happens when you can’t be compliant?

I ended up wanting to sit with my back to the class because the flickering light, even in my peripheral vision, was so difficult to manage. When I wanted to be there, facing backwards felt like a pretty strong statement which I was almost forced into making.

Articulating access requirements is a kind of rupture – a refusal to participate in the way everyone else is. And this articulation is a rejection of a status quo, which automatically sets you at loggerheads with all kinds of power dynamics. I didn’t feel like my concerns about the projector triggering a migraine were taken seriously, and this also felt like a different kind of refusal. This, likely, was not because the staff didn’t take them seriously, but because the layout of the room was so rigid as to not allow alternatives. It may have been because of other factors as well, perhaps I didn’t articulate my own access requirements clearly enough? Whatever the reasoning, it made me wonder, how many of our interactions with ‘difficult’ or ‘disruptive’ students are because we are forcing them to be compliant to an environment or system which they fundamentally can’t participate in?

There’s a lot of potential to create or drive change by being forced into the position of the ‘difficult’. Writing about the decision to title a symposium about diversity and disability ‘Awkward Bastards’ Craig Ashley reflects “By taking a position of awkwardness, we are empowered to ask difficult questions, to challenge the legitimate ground where it is assumed or outmoded, and to propose alternative territories for the mainstream.” [in DASH (2016) p.13].

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References

DASH ed. (2016) ‘The incorrigibles : perspectives on disability visual arts in the 20th and 21st centuries’ Publisher: MAC Birmingham, 2016.

Gevers, I. (2009). Difference on Display. Nai010 Publishers.

RNIB. (n.d.). Coloboma. [online] Available at: https://www.rnib.org.uk/your-eyes/eye-conditions-az/coloboma/.

SCOPE (2024). Social Model of Disability | Disability Charity Scope UK. [online] www.scope.org.uk. Available at: https://www.scope.org.uk/social-model-of-disability.

Blog Post 5 : Critique of design critique…

Notes on ‘The design critique and the moral goods of studio pedagogy” (2019) Jason K. McDonald and Esther Michela, Brigham Youn University, USA

I feel uncomfortable with ‘design’ thinking which I see as being very task orientated, focused on usefulness and instrumentalised in some way… all things which I understand as making bad art – not always – but often. So straightaway I feel alienated by this article but I am interested in studio pedagogy so I’m going in…

p.2 ” The intrinsic ends of practice as defined as goods in the sense that, when achieved, people have experienced something that they recognise as good, and that allows them to define themselves as good practitioners, at least within the context of the cultural frameworks that lay claim upon them… And these goods are moral, both because practices have internal expectations of better or worse ways of accomplishing their own ends, and because pursuit of practice-specific goods is accompanied by “implications for others who lives are affected by what [that practice] bring(s) about”… I am instinctively not that comfortable about the idea of morality in the mix here, but of course it is in the mix, in every mix and the way it is contextualised here is helpful.

Summary from the article of the ‘moral goods’ of critiques:

FEEDBACK: getting feedback leading to the development of stronger work

INDEPENDENT THINKING: wrestling things out with your tutor, a space of challenging ideas together or in opposition

UNPREDICTABILITY: openness to new possibilities. Unplanned / unplannable teaching space.

IMPROVISATION: parallels to improv actors, improvising with students a conversation contingent on their input, ideas and work. This ideal of the “emergent environment” is important for the teacher interviewed, own sense of ‘self-cultivation’ – it’s a learning environment for staff too.

MECHANISM FOR INTERVENTION: a way of inputting into students’ process as it is underway as opposed to the beginning or end.

Interesting the description of th double-edged sword of critique: p.3 “a duality of potential help and potential harm”. This idea of harm is expanded on p.15 “if instructors think they know what is good for students, but their ideas are somehow limited or even inaccurate, they might overly emphasise their biased views and miss the bigger picture of what their practice might actually be able to accomplish”.

P.11 “…ONLY ONE WOMAN WAS INCLUDED AS A PARTICIPANT IN OUR STUDY. WHILE THIS IS CONSISTENT WITH THE PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN TEACHING AT THIS PARTICULAR UNIVERSITY….” Emphasise mine. Only 1 out of 6… I struggle with how I can take this article seriously at all… IN 2019… YIKES.

I wonder what differentiates feedback and critique? I would like the authors to define what they mean by critique as it isn’t contextualised enough for me.

References:

‘The design critique and the moral goods of studio pedagogy” (2019) Jason K. McDonald and Esther Michela, Brigham Youn University, USA