Creative Practice Cycling Tours: Preparing Future Graduates for the Risks and Responsibilities of Cultural Production

  • Dr Marsha Bradfield: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CCW Graduate School and member of Critical Practice Research Cluster

This Presentation starts at 11:45 in room T1101. Back to Parallel Session 2

Brief description of session and activities

Creeping risk aversion is adversely impacting art and design education. Health and safety requirements have exploded with growing concern about liability. Student expectations are changing as rising fees track with their sense that learning should be both fun and foundational. As a result, tutors are under increasing pressure to deliver curriculum that is both stimulating and safe. Feasibility aside, what are the implications of cultivating a culture predicated on safety and ‘edutainment’ in educational institutions of art and design? Is this ethos actually doing future cultural producers more harm than good by failing to prepare them for the realities of risk in life post-graduation?  And how might extra-curricular projects engage with these realities in ways that core curricula simply can’t?

These questions will open up discussion of the proposed paper, which concerns risk tolerance as a key attribute of UAL graduates. This will be contextualised with reference to a project realised as part of the ‘Futurising the Curriculum’ scheme. In June of 2014, I co-curated and led two cycling tours that respectively examined graduate attributes related to ‘employability and enterprise’ and ‘sustainability and resilience’. The tours took students, staff and alumni to meet artists, designers, architects and other cultural producers on their home turf. By getting off campus and up-close-and-personal with these practitioners, we aimed to better understand the risks and responsibilities of being a cultural producer in London today.

The proposed paper will discuss the cycle-tour format with reference to risk tolerance as a value of extracurricular activities. Operative in parallel with the core curriculum, they provide a much-needed space to explore issues that may be too contentious or sensitive to discuss in regular classes. We will consider in particular the potential of activities that, like the cycle tours, experiment through their content and form, as they negotiate the threshold between art and design education and cultural production post-graduation.

Will students be involved in the session? If so how?

No students will be involved in the session.

What will participants take away from the session?

Participants will take away a stronger sense of the value of extracurricular activity as a much-needed space to engage contentious issues that cannot be adequately hosted by core curriculum. Ideally, reference to the Creative Cycling Practice Tours will inspire others at the UAL to experiment with alternative teaching formats. Discussion generated in the session will also be incorporated in the paper’s preparation for publication and dissemination.