Tag: IPUnit

Intervention Reflective Report

Content warning: suicide

Introduction 

My intervention aims to create positive studio cultures through having dedicated mobile-phone free studios, agreed in a co-design process with students[1]. Underpinning the intervention is a desire to support students’ positive wellbeing and mental health. This is informed by the teaching context of my role as Year 2 (Y2) Leader for the BA Fine Art (BAFA) at Chelsea; my own positionality and lived experience; and my professional expertise in my art practice.

The BAFA course has a large cohort of students, and in 25-26 cohort will be approximately 180 students in 2Y alone. We will have 14 different studio rooms across 3 different floors of B-Block at Chelsea. In my role as 2Y Leader I have undertaken Mental Health First Aider training (completed Autumn 2024).

Mental health is not just a field of interest for me but grounded in my own lived experiences. I disclosure this with some hesitation, as Gupta et al (2023 p.1646) points out that for lived experience researchers, “…their credibility… and the knowledge they produce may be doubted, for example by epistemic injustice where they are perceived through the stigmatised lens of a service user and their place in a hierarchy”. However, as hooks (1994 p.76) states, “I know that experience can be a way to know and can inform how we know what we know. Though opposed to any essentialist practice that constructs identity in a monolithic, exclusionary way, I do not want to relinquish the power of experience…” I am encouraged by feminists like bell hooks to view the personal as political. I have had a varied journey through periods of my own mental ill-health, and have had counselling, specialist trauma therapy and CBT. I have also experienced the loss of both a wider family member and a close friend to suicide. The most challenging dynamics I face in my role are where students’ mental ill health triggers these experiences.

In my art practice I have produced extensive work and research around the interplay between mental health and digital cultures [Beales (2017)]. In my body of work ‘Are We All Addicts Now’[2] I focused on how behavioral psychology was employed within mobile apps to keep ‘users’ on device. I have also worked extensively as an artist in mental health contexts, for example, undertaking a residency in the NHS’ only clinic treating online behavioural addictions (2021)[3].

Context – Macro and Micro

The Office for Students’ Equality of Opportunity Risk register (2024) lists ‘Mental Health’ as one of 12 risks negatively affecting students’ progression and completion. UAL’s Access and Participation Plan found that 3 groups of students are exposed to equality of opportunity risks. They are:

  • students from areas with the most deprivation (ie Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) Q1-2 areas).
  • students from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds in general and Black students in particular.
  • disabled students, especially those with mental health conditions and multiple disabilities.

There appears to be limited intersectional analysis of how these categories overlap, but it is clear from my teaching experience that this is often the case.

The 2Y BAFA Course Student Survey (CSS) results have recently been released and whilst there is some very positive and encouraging data, the lowest performing area (69.4%) is the question about the Mental Wellbeing Services (Fig 1).

Fig 1. 2Y BAFA Chelsea CSS 24-25 results

A national survey [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), a sharp increase. In 2025-26, these are the 19–21-year-olds on the 2Y. However, in Chelsea’s specific context, student disclosures of mental health conditions are only 3.4% according to the UAL Dashboard. Our experience on the BAFA is more in line with the national picture, with the team regularly dealing with high levels of mental distress amongst our students. There is evidently, a culture of non-disclosure[4], which is a larger research topic which deserves some sustained enquiry.

What we do know, is that only 69% of our 2Y students agreed that the mental support services provision at Chelsea was well communicated.

Fig 2. BAFA Y2 CSS 24-25 Mental Wellbeing results

In 24-25 the onsite mental health support was only available for a couple of hours a week over lunchtime, in a room tucked away. It seems clear that with over 5,000 students based at Chelsea, there is a case for a dedicated mental health worker to be onsite at least 3 days a week in an accessible location. I am currently engaged in ongoing conversations to lobby for increased provision.

My intervention has been designed using a positive psychology approach[5] with a goal of developing positive studio communities. Whilst digital tools can enable positive collaborations (and I regularly use digital mediums in both my teaching and art practice) the mechanics of smart phone usage have a largely negative correlation to both mental health and concentration. There is a significant body of research evidencing that the dynamics around social media apps (reliant on smartphones) are the most problematic for mental health [e.g. Girela-Serrano, B.M. et al. (2022) p.1646]. The detrimental effects of media-multi-tasking and inability of students’ to self-regulate smartphone media usage, is increasingly evidenced [Dontre (2021) p.387]. In these extractive environments, users attention is the currency sold to advertisers, with the user rewarded in a process Moore [(2017)] terms ‘dopamining’. Instagram and other such platforms privilege the ‘glance’ at the expense of the ‘gaze’ [Zulli (2017) p.147]. In art practice, a deep and sustained, active ‘looking’ is an important part of visual literacy.

It is not just a question of teaching but of ‘being’ together. Given that face-to-face interactions have a strong correlation to quality of life[6], how can we encourage these dynamics in our studio cultures?

Inclusive learning

Intersectionality is very important in any discussion around mental health as I have already intimated. Specifically in relation to mobile usage, Disabled students might need more access to their phones as an access requirement for multiple reasons e.g. as a reasonable adjustment to record a seminar or to arrange taxis, to access support networks or to correspond with medical professionals. There are other groups who may need to access their mobile more. International students can use translation software and this needs to be normalized rather than stigmatized. Simply, any intervention would need to be sensitively co-designed with students who need to be given space to articulate valid reasons why they might need access to their phone in a studio environment.

Reflection 

I found both tutor feedback and peer feedback very helpful. I was concerned in advance that this may be perceived as a ‘Luddite’ position by both tutors and peers, as in the past I have found debates about technology usage binary rather than nuanced. However, peers Andrea and Umi both reflected that they ask students to turn off mobile phones in taught sessions. Whilst I am seeking to extend the scope to cover the context of self-directed studios, I was encouraged to find some of my concerns about mobile phone usage shared.

Interactions with tutors have encouraged me to value my embodied expertise as someone with lived experience with mental ill-health. Their input has caused me to reflect more deeply on what researcher self-care and well-being mean in this project, and in my teaching role more generally. As Audre Lorde (1998:131) says, “Caring for [oneself] is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” I need to find on-going ways to safeguard and recharge myself.

I also reflected on the role of studios in the context of fine art pedagogy and how this differs to a design or architectural approach although these are often conflated [cf. Corazzo (2019)]. The studio within artists’ practice has a distinct contribution [Salazar (2013)], one that is under pressure from various factors such as pressures on space, increasing student numbers and financial pressures on students’ limiting their time in studio spaces.  

Action 

Through the reflective process initiated by this report, I have rethought the scale and design of my intervention. Rather than my instinctive response to be over-ambitious and roll it out across my year group (7 tutor groups in total) I will start with a simple intervention in my own tutor group first. Only when and if, I can evidence efficacy, will I try and scale it up across the other tutor groups. This will help minimise the management I will have to do of my 2Y team, in terms of getting them to deliver something that is at such an experimental stage.

Evaluation of your process

As a neurodiverse person I can be very expansive in my thinking [7]. This can be challenging to manage and can tip into overwhelm. Trying to design an intervention that makes a positive contribution can feel paralyzing as there are so many systemic issues at play within mental health[8], many of which are out of my control. The territory demands multiple interventions but there are always limitations on resources.

The input I have received from tutors and peers has made me question the sustainability of the interventions I already make in my role. I need to consider how I regulate my own workload so I avoid burnout. We teach because we care, but if we don’t place limits on caring, particularly whilst doing affective labour that chimes with our own lived experience, we can run out of energy to care at all.

It is also clear I need to involve students not just in the design but also the evaluation of any intervention and need to embed this as part of the Action Research design process.

Conclusion 

This Reflective Report has made me open to redesigning my intervention as part of the Autumn’s Action Research unit. I want to consider in my depth the ethical considerations for myself and others. As part of this, I want to start with more research to understand ethnographic research methodologies and investigate relevant co-design models.

1650 words (not including footnotes)

Bibliography:

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).

Beales, K. et al. (2017) Are we all addicts now? Digital Dependence edited by Bartlett, V and Bowden-Jones, H. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press.

Carr, A., Cullen, K., Keeney, C., Canning, C., Mooney, O., Chinseallaigh, E. and O’Dowd, A. (2020). Effectiveness of positive psychology interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16(6), pp.749–769. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1818807.

James Corazzo (2019) Materialising the Studio. A systematic review of the role of the material space of the studio in Art, Design and Architecture Education, The Design Journal, 22:sup1, 1249-1265, DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2019.1594953

Dontre AJ. ‘The influence of technology on academic distraction: A review.’ Hum Behav & Emerg Tech. 2021; 3: 379–390. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.229

Girela-Serrano, B.M. et al. (2022) ‘Impact of mobile phones and wireless devices use on children and adolescents’ mental health: A systematic review’, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 33(6), pp. 1621–1651. doi:10.1007/s00787-022-02012-8.

Gupta, V., Eames, C., Golding, L., Greenhill, B., Qi, R., Allan, S., Bryant, A. and Fisher, P. (2023). ‘Understanding the Identity of Lived Experience Researchers and providers: a Conceptual Framework and Systematic Narrative Review.’ Research Involvement and Engagement, [online] 9(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-023-00439-0.

Hill , A. (2024) ‘Group of 17 London Secondary Schools join up to go smartphone-free’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/06/group-of-17-london-secondary-schools-join-up-to-go-smartphone-free (Accessed: 23 May 2025).

Hooks, Bell. ‘Teaching to Transgress : Education As the Practice of Freedom’, Taylor & Francis Group, 1994. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=1656118.
Created from ual on 2025-07-14 09:14:21.

Hudson, D., 2024. ‘Specific Learning Differences, What Teachers Need to Know: Embracing Neurodiversity in the Classroom’. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Jones, C.H. and Whittle, R. (2021). ‘Researcher self‐care and caring in the research community’. Area. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12703.

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.

Lee, P.S.N., Leung, L., Lo, V., Xiong, C. and Wu, T. (2010). Internet Communication Versus Face-to-face Interaction in Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research, [online] 100(3), pp.375–389. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9618-3.

Lopez-Fernandez, O. et al. (2017) ‘Self-reported dependence on mobile phones in young adults: A European cross-cultural empirical survey’, Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6(2), pp. 168–177. doi:10.1556/2006.6.2017.020.

Lorde, A. (1988). A burst of light: Essays. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books.

Moore, G. (in press). Dopamining and Disadjustment: Addiction and Digital Capitalism. In V. Bartlett, & H. Bowden-Jones (Eds.), Are We All Addicts Now? Digital Dependence (68-75). Liverpool University Press

Moriña, A. (2024) 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, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2022.2113038

Officeforstudents.org.uk. (2024). Equality of Opportunity Risk Register – Office for Students. [online] Available at: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/for-providers/equality-of-opportunity/equality-of-opportunity-risk-register/ (accessed 13 July 2025)

Salazar, S.M. (2013). Studio Interior: Investigating Undergraduate Studio Art Teaching and Learning. Studies in Art Education, 55(1), pp.64–78. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2013.11518917.

UAL Access and Participation Plan (accessed July 2025) https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/458346/University-of-the-Arts-London-Access-and-Participation-Plan-2025-26-to-2028-29-PDF-1297KB.pdf

UAL Dashboard CSS results (accessed June 2025)

Zulli, D. (2018). Capitalizing on the look: Insights into the glance, attention economy, and instagram. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 35(2), pp.137–150. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2017.1394582.

Footnotes:

[1] See my Intervention blog post https://kbealespgcert.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/05/26/ip-unit-intervention/

[2] ‘Are We All Addicts Now?’ (2017) exhibitIon by Katriona Beales at Furtherfield https://www.furtherfield.org/are-we-all-addicts-now/

[3] See public event with the Arts and Health Hub which disseminated the outcomes of this residency https://www.artsandhealthhub.org/events/residency

[4] See Moriña (2024) When what is unseen does not exist

[5] Positive psychology is “for example, setting valued goals, imaging one’s best possible self, using signature strengths, savoring past or present pleasures, finding flow, being grateful for positive experiences, developing optimism, strengthening relationships, practicing kindness, developing grit, being courageous, engaging in post-traumatic growth, and practicing forgiveness (Parks &Layous, 2016; Parks & Schueller, 2014)” [Carr et al (2020) p.749]

[6] Lots of research to evidence this. See for example a study mapping quality of life in relation to internet usage across 4 Chinese cities. “Contrary to our expectation… Internet use for interpersonal communication cannot predict people’s quality of life, while face-to-face interaction with friends and family members can. The result was the same across the four Chinese cities.” [Lee et al (2010) p.383]

[7] I was diagnosed with dyslexia whilst a postgraduate student at Chelsea in 2011. This has been very helpful in terms of understanding how I can rapidly process visual information but find processing oral information difficult. I also resonate with the following: “dyslexic students feel overwhelmed by perceived ‘big’ tasks. They tend to see the magnitude of the whole project…” [Hudson (2024) p.36]

[8] See 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’

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 2nd 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.

546 words

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

‌

[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.

792 words

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: Intervention

Mobile-free studios: developing positive studio cultures on 2Y BA Fine Art

The intervention I propose is that certain studios in the 2Y BA Fine Art footprint become mobile phone free ones as part of a pilot aimed at addressing poor mental health and a demise in productive studio culture post-pandemic.

We have approximately 12 different studio rooms across 3 different floors of B-Block at Chelsea, currently with 162 students in the year. Take up across the studios can be limited and the most successful studios are ones which have actively engaged student community. The 25-26 cohort is looking to be 180-200 students with a slightly expanded studio footprint.

Students are to collectively select which studios are to trial this pilot, which will work on an opt-in basis. The aim is to create studio spaces where students:

  • Feel safe and want to spend time
  • Can work productively without distractive and extractive apps
  • Can develop a discursive culture with their peers, and consequently feel less isolated

A colleague in product design has a contact for a charity that supplies ex-office furniture for free to educational establishments. As part of this intervention, I would get some sofas (meeting latest fire safety regulations) for studio spaces in the pilot to help create environments that encourage students to spend time there.

This intervention is informed by:

  • My own research particularly 2015-17 into online behavioural addictions and the way that the meshing of telecommunications devices with network culture, helped create a context for the use of behavioural psychology to channel user attention, creating ‘sticky’ environments that people find very difficult to negotiate. [See https://www.katrionabeales.com/arewealladdictsnow & the accompanying book edited by Bartlett and Bowden-Jones (2017)].
  • Two significant interpersonal ruptures within the student body 23-25. Both involved messages shared on social media negatively overspilling into the physical space of the college and studio, which had serious and longlasting impacts on studio culture and usage by students.
  • Conversations with Sarah Campbell, the Mental Health Advice Manager at UAL, whom I have worked with closely regarding some of my 24-25 students who have experienced severe mental ill health.
  • Various campaigns within different parts of the education sector. A network in secondary schools in the London borough I live in (Southwark) have recently banned smartphones [Hill (2024)].

I am aware this could be seen as overbearing and carefully need to position this, as I am not trying to encourage a Luddite position but one of having a critical engagement with technology. I am perhaps confusingly, very interested in digital artworks and am not suggesting it would be a laptop-free space. It is the dynamics around social media apps (reliant on smartphones) that evidence suggests are the most problematic for mental health [Girela-Serrano, B.M. et al. (2022) p.1646]. I am also aware of that many of our international students use translation software in tutorials and need to be careful that this isn’t discriminatory by encouraging the use of laptop or tablet devices as opposed to phones. The transition to using SEATs to mark attendance through student’s mobile phones is also potentially an issue. We can work around this by these studios having an agreement that once they have logged their attendance their phone is stored is off. 

I would like to run this as a longitudinal trial over the autumn term 2025, with questionnaires exploring students’ perceptions on studio culture and their mental health in both the mobile-free studios and the ones that hadn’t participated in the pilot. I am aware I might need ethical clearance to undertake some of this research.

586 words

Bibliography

Beales, K. et al. (2017) Are we all addicts now? Digital Dependence edited by Bartlett, V and Bowden-Jones, H. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press.

Hill , A. (2024) Group of 17 London Secondary Schools join up to go smartphone-free, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/06/group-of-17-london-secondary-schools-join-up-to-go-smartphone-free (Accessed: 23 May 2025).

Girela-Serrano, B.M. et al. (2022) ‘Impact of mobile phones and wireless devices use on children and adolescents’ mental health: A systematic review’, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 33(6), pp. 1621–1651. doi:10.1007/s00787-022-02012-8.

Lopez-Fernandez, O. et al. (2017) ‘Self-reported dependence on mobile phones in young adults: A European cross-cultural empirical survey’, Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6(2), pp. 168–177. doi:10.1556/2006.6.2017.020.

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.

521 words

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)