The Talking Shop is a new initative designed to build solidarity and action against the huge changes that threaten to wreck art and design education in this country.
Where?
Upstairs at the Exmouth Arms
1 Starcross Street
Euston, NW1 2HR
When?
Wednesday 27 June 2012
6.30- 8.30pm
We are good at describing the malaise, and texts from radical thought loom large on reading lists and in seminar discussions, but recent and imminent changes in education with the restructuring, cuts and job losses that come in their wake seem to have caught us on the back foot with an apparent schism between theoretical radicalism and our ability to act collectively.
How can we take a more active stance in relation to art and education and build on different initiatives from colleges and activist groups responding to the current politics of art and education? The monthly Exmouth Arms talking shops are intended to open up a space in which to formulate arguments and promote exchanges between institutions and interest groups to hopefully foster new allegiances and suggest strategies for resistance and reasserting shared responsibility.
The evening will be structured around three or four short presentations: updates, polemics, proposals for actions, testing ideas, calls for collaboration…and discussion.
THIS TIME
Topics will include an update on Widening Participation / the emphasis on research in art education / building allegiances between different parts of the sector and more..
What to do?
LAST TIME
Refusing conformity and exclusion in art and education / threats to art schools as critical and heterogeneous spaces / corporate public pedagogy in compulsory and higher education / necessity of tackling exclusion if the culture of art schools is to be transformed…
Creeping instrumentalist language in art schools…
Union activity / UCU research and responses to the for-profit sector within education in the context of the cuts / US precedents…
Powers of exam boards in determining how art is taught, evaluated, valued & sold in schools…
Proposal to write an art and design course for sixth form students and FE colleges as a way to challenge the structure and restructuring of the education system…
Proposal to unite artists & art teachers & art students in a trans-union (and pro-union) alliance of opposition to perceived threats to art education…
Please come early to avoid disappointment! Free but small donation for room hire gratefully received.
For further information or if you are interested in speaking please contact:
CONTACTS: Margot: margotbann@hotmail.com or Corinna: corinnatill@gmail.com