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 11th 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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Bulbs springing up in my garden

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.

Microteaching Day

My Session Plan : Containers for Meaning

  • Take a moment to have a deep breath, and unwind your shoulders.
  • Unbox the Chinese New Year gift I was given from a student. Take turns to pass it round – one stage of unwrapping per person, with each layer laid out on the table. Contextualise in relation to my own positionality and not having a deep knowledge of Chinese New Year and it’s cultural resonances but finding the experience of receiving this gift very affective, especially context of my ongoing interest in creating containers for meaning.
  • Discussion : What did you feel as we unboxed that together?
  • The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction : Introduce the text briefly. Handout copies so everyone has one. A Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction is 1986 essay by Ursula K. Le Guin, in which she sets out her approach to writing – her theory of fiction. She starts by telling a story about prehistoric human interactions and how the main human activity would be gathering, and hence how the first cultural objects were containers. She reflects on what impact this version of prehistory has, and what possibilities it opens up in contrast to the version where the ‘Hero’ slays the mammoth.
  • Read together an extract, again passing the text around the group one sentence at a time. The sentences vary in length and we will adhere to the punctuation so we may have very short sentences or very lengthy ones.
  • Construct a container out of plasticene – inspired perhaps by one of the objects on the table
  • As we work on these together – discuss together the text and the questions it raises.
  • If time, pass the plasticene objects around and work on top of someone elses’
  • Finish by in your imagination sealing a word into the container.
  • Closing moment where people can choose to share this if they wish.
The Chinese New Year gift unboxed

References:

Le Guin, U.K. (1986). Carrier Bag Theory Of Fiction. S.L.: Ignota Books. Download avaliable: https://monoskop.org/images/9/96/Le_Guin_Ursula_K_1986_1989_The_Carrier_Bag_Theory_of_Fiction.pdf

Reflections on my microteaching session:

My peers were really struck by reading the text together and most had not done this before. This surprised me, probably because it is a core part of my my own teaching practice and a weekly feature in the intersectional feminist reading group I run. Most of the discussion centred around this, rather than the content of the text itself which I did not anticipate.

Reflections on my peers’ microteaching sessions:

Antonia led a beautiful session on block printing, reflecting on her own practice of printing and graphic design and providing us each with handcut stamps she had made. I made the print on fabric below and found this a very meditative exercise. Everyone responded to this activity in their own way, responding to the context of their own disciplines too, so the person teaching on fashion covered the whole fabric as if it was a seamless fabric design, whereas mine functions more as an art object.

Other peers led workshops pm:

using polaroid photography to rethink portraiture

abstract perspex shapes to create fashion designs. Note: I found the stylished female bodies quite difficult to work with so used my design to obliterate or hid the body – see below.

creating museums of the future using found objects and fictional writing

using a section from Macbeth which we staged as an improv reading

It was genuinely inspiring to see so many different types of teaching practice and I felt like I left with a great deal of ideas to try out with my own students.

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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

thoughts from induction 1

I was feeling very tired, almost delirious, and my eye was struggling with the flickering projector which was on the edge of triggering a migraine. The set up of the room meant that we were all sat in rows obscured by large computer screens. I found it a weirdly hostile space for our first meeting, which made me reflect on how important these moments 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.

Articulating access requirements is a kind of rupture – a refusal to participate in the way everyone else is. And this articulation is a of 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, in all likelihood, 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.

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. Facing backwards felt like a pretty strong statement which I was almost forced into making, when I actually wanted to be there.

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?

Hi there…

I’m Katriona, and the Year 2 Leader on the BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts. I am new in post, starting Sept 2024). I have overall responsibility for around 160 students in 2nd Year. I have my own tutor group of 28 students and do one to one tutorials, teaching and assessments as part of this role. I run the Year meetings and have been experimenting with turning this into a context for students to showcase work in progress as well as where the week to week timetable and events are discussed. I oversee the 2nd Year lecture series, working with colleagues to align it to the 2nd Year and also deliver lectures. I also work with colleagues cross-year to oversee the Professional Futures programme shared with Year 3 on the BA. I am particularly interested in looking at practical tools to support students in developing a sustainable practice beyond their studies. I also oversee a staff team of 5 fractional staff and 6 associate lecturers. I coordinate the assessment process and also run parity meetings. A key part of my role is to oversee all the students to participate in a series of exhibition projects over the year: a collective exhibition in Nov, a group off-site project in March and an on-site solo presentation in May. I also run an Intersectional Feminisms reading group which is open to any 2nd Year to attend.

I’m an artist and I make digital artefacts, objects, moving image and installation as well as participatory projects. My work responds to the social implications of new technologies and affective experiences in post-digital culture, with a particular interest in mental health. My interdisciplinary project ‘Are We All Addicts Now?’ was supported by The Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England and was shown at Furtherfield in 2017. Recent work includes new commissions at the V&A and Science Gallery London (both 2018); a participatory green screen installation at Autograph (2020); a commission for Disrupt & Reflect, online at IMPAKT, Netherlands (2020-21) and a commission for Sotheby’s Institute of Art that premiered at the V&A (2023).

I started a trade union for artists in 2014, Artists’ Union England and I am currently on the National Executive Committee for AUE.