Lana Locke

About Lana Locke

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Reflective Report 

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Artefact: Veronica Ryan’s Windrush Commission sculpture 
Year 1 BA Fine Art Camberwell visit as part of Unit 4: Activating Practice 

Visit to Veronica Ryan's Windrush Commission Sculpture
Image 1 

Introduction  

This report is about a site-visit and talk I organised in May 2022 to see Veronica Ryan’s Windrush Commission sculpture in Hackney (Ryan, 2021, pictured at image 1) and chat to Lauren Gee, a Public Programmes Producer from Create London who commissioned the work.   

I am a White cisgender woman. A Londoner from birth, I grew up in a low parental income household, going to a diverse school in West London, and spending weekends surrounded by Hindu and Sikh community and culture as my parents attended meetings of Indian-based sect Radha Soami Satsang Beas (see RSSB Official, 2010-22). We had to leave London when I was 10 years old because the family could no longer afford to live there. On reflection, this direct experience of gentrification and being forced out of a diverse metropolitan area to a White-dominant rural area may influence my disidentification (Muñoz, 1999) with Whiteness and the importance I place on honouring and defending diversity in the capital.  

Context  

In May-June 2022 I led Unit 4 – Activating Practice, cross-course with Year 1 BA Fine Art students. The unit is broadly about public, site-specific art practice. I particularly wanted the students to consider public art in the wake of Black Lives Matter, with the toppling of statues of slave traders, and think about what and who public art is for (Gentleman, 2022).

As part of the unit I organised a visit to Veronica Ryan’s Windrush Commission (2021). She has created three large scale sculptures of Caribbean fruit that reference her childhood and visiting Ridley Road market with her mother. Through conversation with Gee, we explained to the students that the Windrush Generation were Caribbean workers who were invited to the UK during the period 1948-1973, then many decades later in 2018 experienced the trauma of “the Windrush scandal, which saw hundreds of elderly people of Caribbean heritage who had lived in Britain for decades detained or deported, purportedly for not having the right visa” (Gentleman, 2022). 

Inclusivity 

As White women are in the majority in Higher Education (Richards and Finnigan, 2015, p.4), I think it is important for me to incorporate sources beyond my own positionality: decolonising the curriculum is a collective responsibility. Archambault, Janosz, Morizot, & Pagani in Katz (2013, p.160) say “For a student to be socially engaged, they must experience a sense of belonging, interact with peers, and be involved in extracurricular and social activities within the school”. In taking students off-site I therefore felt a particular responsibility to be inclusive, and, as outlined by Jackie Parke (Parke and Parke, 2016), when putting together sources for the course, for a diverse body of voices to be represented that they could engage with. I share the aim put forward by Hahn Tapper (2013, p.415) of creating experiences that I can undergo with students, and having never seen Ryan’s piece since its opening in October 2021, I would be experiencing it ‘as new’ too.     

In speaking from her cultural experience both in terms of her Caribbean heritage and growing up in Hackney, I presented this example to stimulate students to draw on their own identity and culture, giving them the opportunity to “explore personal identity in the creative process on their course. This could make a difference in creating work that is more risk-taking and experimental” (Finnigan and Richards, 2016, p. 8).   

Reflection  

As Morgan Quaintance pointed out in his 2020 Art Monthly article “Decolonising Decolonialism”, decolonisation cannot only operate at a symbolic level. We must acknowledge the term “decolonisation” being drawn from an actual process in occupied territories, and consider the land we occupy and gentrify. I drew the students’ attention to gentrification in London, including Hackney, where Ryan’s sculpture is based. Indeed, we learned from Create London that it was only through a fierce campaign by the local community that the Ridley Road market, that Ryan’s sculptures of fruit reference, was not lost to property development (Mauro-Benady, 2022). Spike Lee’s assertion that “There are no more black people in Brixton” and “the thing everybody neglects to talk about is: where do the people go that get displaced? Bottom line, where do they go?” (Bailey, 2014) is applicable not only to Hackney but also Peckham and Camberwell – and I encouraged the students to think about the land our college occupies there, and who their proposed public art projects would be for. 

Action  

The artefact was used as a talking point with Create London and the students about who the Windrush Generation are, how they were treated by the UK Government, and the process of community engagement that Ryan built from the ground up in collaboration with the people who live in the area.   

My own site-specific practice is often reaching into overlooked community spaces, or sites threatened by gentrification, and undertaking art-protest projects to defend them. Although I shared this experience in a separate lecture with students, I could have drawn on this background further in engaging with this work and outlining my own positionality. I began these projects whilst living in affordable ‘shared ownership’ housing and feeling that the local communities in the poorer parts of North Kensington where I lived – were being cleaned up. Conversely, I now live in Plumstead, near Woolwich, as one of many White people with young families who are gentrifying the area. I confront my feelings of guilt and complicity in this process in my video practice in Journeys of a Laundry Mountain (Locke, 2021).  

Evaluation of your process 

The dialogue with Create London was brilliant, and a key part of the session. I was able to ask and have answered such pertinent questions to flag to the students as the statement on the Create London website that migrants were welcome in Hackney, which seemed to signal a community identity claimed by the borough as distinct from the UK Government. Following Hahn Tapper (2013, p.411), through the public nature of this unit I saw this as an opportunity “to empower participants to engage in social justice activism”.   

The inclusion of Lauren Gee from Create London was important not only in allowing us to find out more about the work but also for myself, as a White British woman, (which as Richards and Finnigan (2015, p.4) point out, the majority of staff still are) to reach beyond my own subjectivity in creating a decolonised programme, with an aim to “incorporate the voices of “others” without colonizing them in a manner that reinforces patterns of domination” (England, 1994, p.2). Yet, as a member of the Caribbean community, Gee shared, and I must acknowledge that I benefited from, her own lived experience, that many are proud of their Windrush heritage and do not want Windrush to only be associated with the scandal. When we had finished viewing the piece, she showed us a community photography exhibition under the railway arches (image 2), and the site of the second part of the Windrush Commission, giving us a further overview of the ongoing work they are doing. 

In my reflection in my individual tutorial and group peer-to-peer feedback session, it was agreed that it would be good to do more to bring the students themselves in to respond to the object. I mentioned in my peer-to-peer session that Create London had said they took the fact that the sculpture had not been graffitied as a sign of the community’s acceptance and attachment to the artwork – however, my peer pointed out that this judgement took too simplistic and hierarchical view of graffiti, and perhaps graffiti would be another way of showing acceptance/attachment/engagement with the piece.

Community photography exhibition, Hackney, 2022 
Image 2 

Conclusion  

The artefact of the sculpture was a good starting point, and the incorporation of Create London into the session helped to widen the student session.  However, in my work on Unit 4 the previous year, I had done more to include pre-readings to be discussed at the site, extending into drawing and installation workshops at the sites. These reflective tools were sidelined as I incorporated Create London into the visit. Hahn Tapper, 2013, p.415, drawing on Freire says that, “an ideal educational experience exists between a teacher and students rather than emanating from a teacher to students. A teacher needs to create experiences with, and not for, students, integrating their experiences and voices into the educational experience itself (Freire 2006)”.   

In future, I would extend the talk into a workshop, where we could, for example, walk around the markets together and draw, film, photograph and discuss what we see; and/or a follow-up session to consider what objects we might choose from our own upbringings to turn into artworks in the communities where we grew up.    

Such an approach would better allow for an experience of making with rather than for.  

Image List:
1. Visit to Veronica Ryan’s Windrush Commission sculpture (Ryan, 2021).
2. Community photography installation, Hackney.

Bibliography 

Bailey, J., 2014. Spike Lee: “We Predicted Gentrification.” Flavorwire.  

England, K. (1994) ‘Getting personal: reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research, The Professional Geographer’, 46(1), pp.80-89. Available at: https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10214/1811/18-England.pdf (Accessed: 26 June 2022).  

Richards, A. and Finnigan, T. (2015) ‘Embedding Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum: An Art and Design Practitioners Guide’. York: Higher Education Academy Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/resources/eedc_art_and_design_online.pdf (Accessed: 1 March 2022). 

Finnigan, T. and Richards, A., (2016) ‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: art and design’. York: Higher Education Academy, Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/retention-and-attainment-disciplines-art-and-design (Accessed: 24 June 2022).  

Fletcher, T. (2010) ‘Being inside and outside the field: An exploration of identity, positionality and reflexivity in inter-racial research.’ Available at: https://www.academia.edu/243923/_Being_Inside_and_Outside_the_Field_An_Exploration_of_Identity_Positionality_and_Reflexivity_in_Inter_racial_Research (Accessed: 26 June 2022). 

Gentleman, A., 2022. Windrush: only one in four applicants have received compensation. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/22/windrush-one-in-four-applicants-received-compensation-home-office (Accessed 26 June 2022). 

Hahn Tapper, A.J. (2013) ‘A pedagogy of social justice education: Social identity theory, intersectionality, and empowerment’. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 30(4), pp.411-445. Available at: https://certainlycert.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2017/04/A_Pedagogy_of_Social_Justice_Education_S.pdf (Accessed 24 June 2022)  

Katz, J., 2013. ‘The Three Block Model of Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Engaging students in inclusive education’. Canadian Journal of Education, pp. 153-194. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jennifer_Katz4/publication/286055447_The_Three-Block_model_of_universal_design_for_learning_UDL_Engaging_students_in_inclusive_education/links/567dfd9f08aebccc4e040983.pdf (Accessed 28 July 2022).

Locke, L, 2021. Journeys of a laundry mountain (video, 26’48”). Available at: https://vimeo.com/513816001 (Accessed 27 June 22).  

Mauro-Benady, R., 2022. “I would have lost it all”: How Dalston’s iconic Ridley Road market fought gentrification and won – MyLondon. Available at: https://www.mylondon.news/news/east-london-news/i-would-lost-all-how-22914139 (Accessed 27 June 22).  

Muñoz, J.E., 1999. Disidentifications: queers of color and the performance of politics, Cultural studies of the Americas. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota ; London.

Parke, J., Parke, R., 2016. Empathy Toward Greater Inclusion Inclusion. Teaching in Higher Ed. Available at: https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/empathy-toward-greater-inclusion/ (Accessed 18 June 2022). 

Quaintance, M., 2020. Decolonising Decolonialism. Art Monthly, Issue 435, April 2020. 

RSSB Official, 2010-22. Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Available at: https://rssb.org/index.html (Accessed 28 July 2022). 

Ryan, V., 2021. Custard Apple (Annonaceae), Breadfruit (Moraceae), and Soursop (Annonaceae), bronze and marble. Available at: https://createlondon.org/event/hackney-windrush-art-commission/ (Accessed 27 June 2022). 

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INCLUSIVE PRACTICES UNIT: 3. RACE

Shades of Noir website

It is brilliant to see the array of articles on offer on Shades of Noir, and how up-to-date they are. As a White person, I approach the website feeling like the resources are not necessarily ‘for’ me, yet the messages are universal, the content relevant not just for my teaching but for me. For example, I have been really perplexed by the recent show of patriotism for the Jubilee, trying to work out what national identity is asserted in it. Reading recent MA graduate, Ndzalama Rodney Sihlangu’s article, Our Majesty Plc. published only last week (June 17, 2022) highlighted further difficulties around support for the Royal Family and its finances.  

Having conducted reading groups and workshops for Year 1 and Year 2 BA students, I have similarly tried to offer them an array of short pieces of writing that they can engage with that our critical and relevant but that do not put ‘theory’ on a weighty pedestal that is hard to digest. I would therefore definitely suggest Shades of Noir as a reading group, essay or workshop resource to my students. If possible, it would also be great to ask Shades of Noir to come and have a session with our cross-course groups. Moreover, I would suggest that students with relevant concerns to be voiced could engage further with their writing but submitting pieces to Shades of Noir for consideration. This could help to give their writing meaning and focus in having an audience and reach in mind.   

Hahn Tapper article: A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education; Social Identity, Theory and Intersectionality (2003).  

Since my MA in Fine Art in 2011-12, at a time of enforced austerity and arts cuts, I became interested in social justice in the context of my art practice – and incorporating the circumstances in which I was working into that practice. The anger and powerlessness I felt against the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government was felt at a personal level as my long-term employment fragmented during the course of the MA and my existence became more precarious, but more embedded in my changing art practice. My PhD, The Feral, the Art Object and the Social, was borne out of my interest in reclaiming the “feral underclass” referred to by the Lord Chancellor in 2011 in reference to the London Riots, and the racialised social group he denigrated – albeit I am White. As the PhD developed I discovered my own feelings of ‘feral’ subjugation as a student parent navigating the restrictions of childcare and parental responsibility whilst studying. I therefore wholeheartedly agree with the principle of Societal Justice Education, and encourage my students to acknowledge and draw from their own intersectional backgrounds, extending to points of both marginality and privilege, in contextualising themselves and their practices.  

The definition provided in the text is useful for framing what social justice is, however I think it is a bit too academic for me to suggest to my BA Fine Art students to read in itself.  

I enjoyed the secondary quotation of Freire in terms of an education that can ‘liberate’ us in terms of social mobility but my provocation would be to search for a better term than ‘domesticate’ as the inverse of this. This usage perpetuates a heteronormative characterisation of the domestic space as being intellectually and socially confining, which is unhelpful to artist parents such as myself, who may struggle with social mobility in terms of money and restrictions of childcare, but do not wish to be defined by these restrictions.    

The proposal to create experiences with rather than for students is exciting, and I try to incorporate such an approach in the events I organise for my students. However, I do not always introduce my background and identity as part of the sessions, aware as I am of being majority White and female and this being boring and dominant. However, on reflection, perhaps this is something I could do more often- and if I invite students to share similarly where it is not already volunteered, this may open up dialogue on difference, and help generate further content for our sessions and areas to explore.     

The Ted talk video “Witness Unconscious Bias” by UCU contained a good provocation and made a clear and compelling case that bias should at this point be conscious, given how much knowledge we have generated in this area. It aroused feelings of guilt and culpability as a White person who benefits from such biases without even realising it. It would be an interesting starting point for a workshop or reading group with students around discrimination. However, I would prefer to show them a more creative, engaging approach to this issue, thinking of the work of Dr Ope Lori in this area – for example her video Alpha and Beta (2015) https://opelori.com/gallery/alpha%20and%20beta where she subverts expectations in terms of race, gender, clothing, class. I also point out in relation to the next topic, we sadly did not manage to retain Dr Lori as a member of UAL staff. The UCU (who made the Witness Unconscious Bias video) is continue to negotiate in relation to addressing the race and disability pay gap as part of its Four Fights strategy – see update here – https://mailchi.mp/174b755e8632/after-the-boycott-what-the-outcome-means?e=50f90788eb which we should all support as UCU members. (If you are not a member, become one!)  

Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design, Finnigan and Richards 2016.  

I was aware through UAL’s stated strategic objectives and learning I have undertaken in relation to AEM, of the attainment and retention gaps we are seeking to address. However it was still shocking to read some of the figures,  

-Firstly, “Art and Design is one of the disciplines with the highest percentages of students leaving with no award (6%) with a disproportionate difference between White students (6%) and Black student groups (Black British Caribbean 9%, Black or Black British African 13%, other Black backgrounds 10%).”    

– Secondly – Another area where there is a noticeable difference in leavers without a degree is between part-time students (13%) and full-time students (6%).  

I have been working on a course in which one of the students of colour is at risk of failing a second unit in his first year. I really struggle with this because I have not been involved in his assessment or formative assessment for the current unit, but he has been very engaged in-person in my larger group sessions- so I had assumed that his studentship had really improved since his failed unit earlier in the year. The group work I have been doing seems to have helped in terms of his feelings of belonging, but a further failure surely risks losing him. Having left home at aged 16, I still regret not having studied an undergraduate degree (despite now having PhD!) and am committed to equipping those without familial or educational scaffolding to be recruited and retained by CCW. I feel like we need to do more to help students like him who are managing studying and working side-by-side, and who missed out on a Foundation. Rather than just offering sign-up sessions to all students at the end of a unit, perhaps we should be putting on targeted extra sessions for students at risk of failure, where we can work on documentation together. This would tally with the quote on page 6 on student experience “I wasn’t expecting to be left to do projects completely on your own. I was expecting more guidance with it being first year and I didn’t know what kind of work they were looking for. (Yorke, M. and Vaughn, D. (2012) Deal or no Deal?: Expectations and Experiences of First-Year Students in Art and Design.  2012, p. 24)”. I could also invite feedback from my own students on what we can do to help them in this area.  

 As a provocation for UAL in terms of recruitment, from my own experience of interviewing students at recruitment stage and what a huge cohort of students we are taking on right now, it doesn’t seem to me that it is so much a case of students of colour being turned down, but that we are still not seeing enough applications from students of colour to say yes to. I am aware of work being done in this area – since 2018 I have worked for UAL Insights, our outreach programme to encourage applications from minority groups such as students of colour, students from low socio-economic backgrounds, care leavers. However, for me, I think our introduction into Secondary Schools needs to start even earlier to encourage students to think about the contribution they can make to Fine Art, and how their positionality becomes a strength they can draw from, and a unique perspective they can offer. In addition to the report’s suggestion (page 19) of increasing the role of staff of colour in recruitment, perhaps more students of colour could be invited (and paid if appropriate) to be involved in recruitment.

Shades of Noir, Race, Issu publication: 

Shedding Whiteness by Jon Straker. I chose this article as it was enlivened by images of practice and written in a way that I thought my students could engage with easily and could form a provocation for them to consider their own subjectivity. As further reading I would also put this piece in conversation with two texts: 
1.Mel Y Chen’s incredible book Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect (2012) -as the yellow stain Straker depicts to invoke his Asian heritage reminded me of a quote in that book regarding “racist logic of associative qualities such as poverty, dirt, and crime” (p.95) in terms of skin colour, and 
2. Disidentifications : queers of color and the performance of politics by José Esteban Muñoz (1999) which, like Straker’s piece, complexifies how we form identity in terms of what we are ‘not’, that may not be in alignment with how we look, the race or gender we are born into, reflecting on how we respond to conflicts and intersections between how we are seen and how we feel internally. I find this helpful even as a heteronormative White person and a mother, seeking to form an identity that transcends conservative formation. 

I have encountered this year some incredible work from my students on BA Fine Art in relation not just to racism, but also phenomena such as Asian Fishing where non-Asian people make themselves up to appear Asian, and the alienating affect of this particular form of racism. It would be good next year to incorporate their practice-based research into a collaborative platform cross-course led by students and the issues they encounter which present forms of racism that staff might not even be aware of. 

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INCLUSIVE PRACTICES: 2. Faith

The website: Religion, Belief and Faith Identities in Learning and Teaching at UAL is a very useful resource that I had not been aware of before, as a non-religious practitioner, however I now realise how religion has a powerful influence on how we perceive and categorise difference, and it has made me question my own biases, for example if a student declares themselves Christian that I might make an assumption that they are less open-minded than an atheist or agnostic person. I have taught a number of students this year who have incorporated their faith into their art practices, and I would in future encourage them to make use of this resource. Although we have discussed issues of identity regularly, the role of religion as it feeds into identity could be better integrated into future discussions. Some of the Art and Design resources – Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith Emma Tarlo, (2010); Race, Religion and Free Speech (Shades of Noir, 2016); and The address of spirituality in contemporary art, Lois Rowe, (2011) – are also a helpful reminder of the relevance of religion in exposing how the primarily secular art-world and media in this country play back into what bell hooks spelt out as the Imperialist White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy i.e. people who look like the ‘ruling’ class. So I would like to introduce such resources in a seminar / reading group scenario with BA Fine Art students who I teach, as an opportunity to put some of our own preconceptions under the spotlight.

The lecture by Kwame Anthony Appiah on Creed raised some interesting points about how religious scriptures and beliefs evolve over time and reflect their communities. The way he spoke about praxis –knowledge arising through practice – was a useful lesson to think about within art practice. As a feminist and atheist, I found the statement he made that to ‘master’ the scriptures was to know which parts to study and which parts to ignore pretty unhelpful in terms of retaining the notion of a ‘master’ who is expert of such knowledge. If he is allowing room to challenge the canon of the scriptures then why is it only open to be challenged by ‘masters’? Where does this put the rest of us – inside that religion or outside of it – in terms of knowledge?

Conversely, his reflection of the many contrary points of view within religions was a useful reminder for studentship in terms of remembering that critical reflection means bringing together a variety of different views, not just one. We should continue to challenge ourselves to break down pre-conceptions. Similarly with identity, he presented himself not only through his own intersectional identity in terms of race, sexuality and religion, but also demonstrated how this could be presented by yet another point of view depending on how you told the narrative of his parents’ backgrounds.

I would not offer this resource to students as I don’t agree with all of its content.

From the Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education stimulus paper

by Tariq Modood and Craig Calhoun, I selected these three headings to read:

1. Minority identities: I was interested in the statement that “For some, the practices and the identity they express can be more concrete than personal faith; even where there is decline or vagueness about belief, a sense of belonging may persist.”. I recently interviewed a Muslim friend for a video project and she said she wasn’t really religious, she mainly believed in ‘being nice to people’ – but that some of her culture and heritage gave her a religious identity. Although I think of myself as non-religious, this unit made me reflect on my background growing up with parents who follow an Indian mystic (Radha Soami Satsang Beas, see: https://rssb.org/index.html), and my own feelings of embarrassment and stigma that the way my Mum dressed, or objects we had at home, were different to other white people’s. Yet I also have fond memories of going the children’s rooms attached to the spiritual meetings they would attend, of Indian culture and food that I grew up with. I recently met with two Indian colleagues who in passing explained some Indian food they were referencing – when I said I knew and told them about my upbringing they were quite astonished, and one told me that her mother followed the same spiritual guru as my parents! Although neither of us are religious, this has given our friendship and creative relationship as colleagues a new complexion which I really appreciate, and makes me realise that religion has formed my own positionality in some positive ways.

2. Vaguely Christian was a useful provocation, in outlining an assumed (White) vaguely Christian British identity. I argue that this is decreasing rapidly in younger generations, particularly in metropolitan areas. When my parents moved from London to Somerset when I was aged around 10 years’ old, the schools I attended were more Christian, with hymns sung in assemblies. I wanted to fit in, and to be ‘good’, and having never been Christened as a child felt like I should be, and also learned passages of the bible so that I could be confirmed. This was quite a short-lived period, and I have since rejected this linkage between being ‘good’ and ‘fitting in’, which resonates with the paper’s argument that “a vague sense of connection to the Church of England is as much identification with the state as with religion” (Modood and Calhoun, 2015, p.16). However, I need to remember that my own experience and relationship with the Church is not the relationship others have. i.e. someone being Christian does not mean they support Nationalist politics.

3. I was slightly perplexed by Religion and dissent in universities when the writer seemed scornful of university lecturers reacting against introducing segregated wash areas for prayer in the LSE Faith Centre. I do not know enough about the practice of prayer to comment on the segregation itself. However, he defends the segregation in terms of pre-existing gendered toilets – and these in themselves I argue we should get rid of in the University, as they have done in other universities. (In fact, in practice I recently discovered that female and non-binary Sculpture students at Camberwell have taken matters into their own hands and simply ignore the Male toilet sign on their floor.) Surely, as with the lecture by Kwame Anthony Appiah, there is place for us to adapt religious protocols for contemporary contexts, and for one community to influence another? Surely there would be a logistical solution to allow separate people, regardless of gender, to wash separately, as must happen in other e.g. domestic environments? He is similarly defensive of entrenched gendered positions when he says “Discussion of different ‘non-binary’ sexual and gender identities is growing on universities campuses. Liberating for some students, it is unsettling for others.” In our active UAL community we don’t just have discussions of non-binary identities, we have many trans and non-binary students. Any students or staff who are ‘unsettled’ by this needs to address their own prejudices – with help and education as can be supported. The enforcement of gender binaries may have religious justification, but that does not mean it can be left unchallenged. I realise, however, that my own position as someone who is non-religious, cisgendered, and comfortable in terms of my experience nonbinary toilet spaces, may influence my stance here.

Shades of Noir, Faith issue and terms of reference. From the issue publication Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief (2017) I selected the interview with Rahul Patel. His use of archives in discovering and supporting minority identities I felt I could suggest as a research method for some of my students in future in putting together contextual references for their practices, as well as potentially using their own e.g. family, cultural archives. I recently had a Year 1 Sculpture student say to me that she is the only Black person on her course and wants to find a community with more Black students. I already let her know about the work of Shades of Noir and student groups she can join– but from reading this I will also encourage her to look at the Black and Asian archives at Chelsea College of Art so that she can see that history of knowledge and belonging that has been nurtured. Rahul’s interview gave a beautiful insight into religious communities as being like refuge and ‘opium’ from an ugly, racist world outside and I would like to draw on this sense of creativity in the vision of a community outside of dominator UK culture in future work.

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INCLUSIVE PRACTICES UNIT: 1. Disability

N.B. This is a repost from my original post in May which was published to an incorrect location – apologies to my blog group if you could not find it before – very grateful for later comments now. Thank you! Lana

Christine Sun Kim film Thought-provoking film, which challenged me as a non-disabled person, ‘looking’ for the disability-in terms of the creative potential she found in being deaf. Firstly, she flags the invisible nature of disability in the opening scenes, and secondly she poses pertinent questions such as: who owns sound, and how does sound manifest for those with hearing difficulties? The installations she creates with motors transform the sound into movement signalled the creative potential of sound beyond being able to hear it. They made me think of the BBC children’s programme “Magic Hands” – where songs are transformed into sign language, dance and animation, presented and made for a deaf audience, but rich and enjoyable creatively for all. In a learning context, the difficulties and frustrations she expressed with language constraints provided a reminder to look for different ways of allowing a student to engage with learning and art practice if they are similarly struggling with formal English language. It would be a provocative resource to share with students in thinking about not only their own disabilities, but also other forms of restriction they are facing as students e.g. money, studio space, and their own creative potential to work with restrictions. This could then open into a sharing space in terms of volunteering our own experiences of visible and invisible disabilities, either our own or through contact with others.

UAL’s Disability Service Webpages are a helpful resource for students in outlining some of the ways in which we can help our students, and I will refer back to these pages myself on behalf of students in the future. I was aware of some of the support that we offer as I have a number of dyslexic students, but I realise now that as an non-disabled person, I have only had a need-use relationship with these pages in terms of learning more about adapting my materials and feedback to be clearer for the dyslexic students. In fact, viewing the material as a whole helps in shifting perspective for teaching as a whole. I was fascinated to come across the link to more information on the the social model of disability, as subscribed to by UAL, but directed to an outline provided by Scope. “[The] social model says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference. Barriers can be physical, like buildings not having accessible toilets. Or they can be caused by people’s attitudes to difference, like assuming disabled people can’t do certain things. The social model helps us recognise barriers that make life harder for disabled people. Removing these barriers creates equality and offers disabled people more independence, choice and control.” I think this model presents an empower way of thinking about disability, and I am very pleased that UAL signs up to it.

Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson. This articles flags some important issues I had not considered: the lack of representation of disabled people of colour in the media, and moreover, “that a lot of African American organizations do not talk about disability, or if they do, it is not in our experience or our voices”. I was shocked to read about some of the exclusions laid out in this Huffington Post article, but it is also quite simplistic, and I am aware of arguments, for example put forward by Jack Halberstam, cautioning against forming groups on the basis of victimhood. In my PhD research I drew on the writing of Mel Y Chen: Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect who discusses in the course of the book the difficulties she encounters as a disabled, queer of colour subject. Yet she also talks about privilege, and how as a middle-classed academic she still speaks from a privileged position.

Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill by Khairani Barokka (Okka). This article struck very close to home for me, as my sister is disabled with a chronic pain condition, and I always feel guilty that I can never fully imagine what she goes through on a daily basis. The BBC news reported on 11 May 2022 that 26% of adults in the UK live with chronic pain, so this clearly represents a huge portion of over a quarter of the population- whether or not they would call themselves ‘ disabled’. The author strikes a balance between expressing her frustration and responding creatively. It was good to see her reinforce the social model subscribed to by UAL and explain what it means to her “I take here the social model notion of disabled as the opposite of ‘enabled’ rather than ‘unable’, a perspective I think particularly useful psychologically, for myself and I imagine other young, brown, disabled women, told in so many ways that we are not valuable, beautiful, equal. Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee touches on these intersectional issues, and in it, I am 98% of the time kneeling or laying down, performing poetry and performance art while refusing to stand and cause myself pain, whether seen by others or not.” This is a great reminder that I would share with students that we draw from our embedded circumstances and put them into our creative practices, to claim this space for all of us. I am not disabled, but felt frustrated as a student mother at navigating the university to fit in expressing milk for my baby in shared and ill-thought toilet / quiet room facilities. When I filmed these difficulties and made a film out of them I was able to express my anger but also increase awareness rather than managing in silence.

Shades of Noir: Disability, issu publication. In a rich and varied publication, I focused in on the article: Evolution of Disability Models: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, as I wanted to know more about the context of the social model that UAL supports. Starting from the Religious Model, of a view that it is not only dehumanising but that casts disability as a cause of shame and godly punishment through to ‘helpful’ but misguided models such as the pitying Charity Model. The Biopsychosocial Model of Disability and Economic Model of Disability gave words to an attitude expressed through policy changes by Government in recent years in making Disability benefits harder to access. A disabled friend of mine has explained to me at a personal level the upheaval and trauma of constantly having to prove illness against a ‘fitness to work’ comparison, and comparing that experience to this model clarifies this as a deliberate, dehumanising strategy. On an uplifting note, it was fantastic to read about further empowering models that build on or complement the social model such as the Affirmation Model and Diversity Model, and I will refer back to these models for further research with students. The Identity Model and Diversity Model in particular could be interpreted in creative ways, and the Diversity Model could encourage participatory projects beyond the abled/disabled binary.

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Formative Assessment: the motivational potential of positive feedback

It has been an enlightening experience this term studying PgCert: putting me in touch with myself as a student learner again, alongside the competing demands on time that exist now and seem always to have existed whenever I have embarked on study! Feeling somewhat demotivated and behind last week, I had a very valuable tutorial with Rachel Marsden on Monday which highlighted both what I had done well and what needed further work. Having tried to convince myself that it was OK just to pass this Unit, this small piece of motivation and reminder of the potential to do better not only helped me to aspire towards a better grade, but to look towards more rewarding thinking and development going forward. Having primarily approached this Unit via the lectures and seminars, I had forgotten the key ingredient of a holistic learning experience: to integrate it with my own research and teaching ideas and practice, and not only respond to the curriculum. I am reminded of the Teaching and Learning Exchange course I studied in 2014 during my PhD and the radical potential I found in bringing in some of the key thinkers in approaching both learning and teaching- “to be in but not of the University” as Fred Moten and Stefano Harney say (2013. The undercommons: fugitive planning & black study.) I then start to become tempted by some of the titles suggested in the additional reading lists as part of the PgCert: Teaching for people who prefer not to teach Bayerdoerfer and Schweiker (editors), 2017), The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (Rancière, 1991), and so the research begins anew.

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The public swimming pool as research space

It has been a busy term both teaching at CCW and studying on the PgCert. Whilst I have not been working in the studio on my art practice as much as I would like, I find that an important space for thinking through ideas and breaking up screen time is that of the local lido, which I visit most weekdays. In some ways, the physicality and sensation of this space is totally opposite to the tutor room, yet as I consider the floating, darting, splashing subjects around me, it also becomes a metaphor for the freedom to be found within the delineations of teaching. Indeed, prominent theorists on gender Judith Butler (see https://www.cccb.org/en/multimedia/videos/judith-butler-the-city-has-something-in-common-with-a-prison-when-it-never-ends/229346) and Jack Halberstam, both refer to the importance of the public pool to them on a personal level. When Halberstam says, “We swim therefore we are in motion”, I would like to take this also as a starting point for thinking about the fluidity of the peer group to embrace new ideas, change and move in their thoughts and practice, to continue though exposed and somewhat vulnerable, to adjust tempo and direction.

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Ain’t I a Womxn: Feminism for Everyone

I began PgCert this term introducing myself with bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress, which resonated with me as an artist who did not necessarily set out to teach, and sometimes feels restricted by it, but against those restrictions, looks to cultivate freedom of thought and practice, for myself and for my students. When hooks died in December 2021, I immediately set about trying to putting together an event on behalf of the Subjectivities and Feminisms Research Group at CCW to honour her legacy. The bringing together of staff and students across races and genders – both performing and watching, was extremely rewarding, and I would like to take my research on hooks forward further in other educational contexts at UAL.

A Queer, Black feminist and prominent scholar on race and gender, bell hooks wrote
that:

In the United States, maintaining white supremacy has always been as great if
not a greater priority than maintaining strict sex role divisions. Women are divided
by sexist attitudes, racism, class privilege… Sustained woman bonding can occur
only when these divisions are confronted and the necessary steps are taken to
eliminate them… Solidarity strengthens resistance struggle. When white women
attack white supremacy they are simultaneously participating in the struggle to
end sexist oppression.
(Sisterhood: Political Solidarity between Women’. Feminist Review, no. 23 (1986): 125–38.)

and:

I think that we have to give feminist politics and feminist movements its props that
it’s one of the few movements for social justice in our nation that has tried in its
visionary aspects to highlight that interdependency between systems of
domination and has tried not to say that somehow it’s an issue of class or it’s an
issue of race, but rather, how do these issues work together to sustain dominator culture.
(Bell Hooks: A Conversation with Bell Hooks, 2020.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Q02nMr02xh2zzS3CRvJM5).

With the support of the Subjectivities and Feminisms Research Group, the Dean of Fine Art, Sophie Phoca, and the Chair of the Anti-Racist EDI Sub-Group, Jheni Arboine, I put out an open call. Expanding on bell hooks’ titles and concepts – I invited proposals for live responses of up to 5 minutes to any of the suggested themes below. The format could be a gesture, a reading, a poem, a song, a manifesto, a costume, a video, an object, a dance, an amalgamation of all or none of these! Collaborations were welcomed!

– Loving Difference as Political Resistance

– Ain’t I a Womxn: celebrating femaleness across genders, races, classes, disabilities and non-disabilities

– Undoing the Imperialist White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy

– Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black and Brown: feminism and anti-racism

– Revolutionary Mutuality: proposals for radical minoritarian coalitions

– Alternative Masculinities

I wrote a story for Canvas as follows:

This International Women’s Day, UAL’s Subjectivity & Feminisms research group is staging a public cabaret performance and video evening to honour the late bell hooks. To be held on Tuesday 8 March, 5.30pm-7.30pm at Chelsea College of Arts, the range of acts promises to be as exciting and diverse as its staff, student and guest contributors.

The Subjectivity and Feminisms Research Group has been co-convened by Dr Maria Walsh and Dr Mo Throp since 2004, and one of the on-going research questions for the Group is whether and how subjectivity is a transitive process, and whether and how it is attached to identity (race, gender, sexuality, disability etc.).

Research Group member Dr Lana Locke, who is leading the Ain’t I a Womxn event, explains how she initiated it to “both communicate and challenge” the group’s continuing discussions around difference: through hooks’ writing and through seeking submissions beyond “a thus far predominantly White and middle-classed membership, which we want to change”. She takes inspiration from hooks who, in conversation with transgender actress Laverne Cox said, “I am actually critical about the notion of safety in my work… White people love to evoke the safe spaces!… I am very interested in what does it mean for us to cultivate together a community that allows for risk: the risk of knowing someone outside your own boundaries; the risk that is love.” (hooks, 2014)

An anti-racist, feminist, queer African American scholar, hooks died in December 2021. She leaves behind her a legacy of refusal of all forms of violence and discrimination, combined with a spirit of kindness, openness and simplicity in her messages. In putting the event together, Locke highlights two of her texts: Ain’t I Woman (1981) – examining the history and perpetuation of racism and sexism against Black women – and Feminism is for Everybody (2000) – written by hooks specifically to help those who either did not know or misunderstood what feminism was.

Contributors include: Jheni Arboine, Agnes Brodje Stiernstedt, Roshni Bhagotra, Joa Blumenkranz, Cécile Emmanuelle Borra, Jo Bruton, Quilla Constance, Fran Cottell, Rosemary Cronin, Bernadette Enright, Keli Garrett, Tara Jerome-Bernabe, Ying Liu, Lana Locke, Catherine Maffioletti, Yulia Rotkina, Abigail Sia, Mo Throp, Maria Walsh, Xiao Xie, Yifei Xie.

We recorded the event, so a link to the recording will follow – watch this space!

Open-call-aint-I-a-womxn-bell-hooksDownload

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Object-based learning seminar

A useful seminar run by UAL Collections staff, highlighting the value of objects in teaching. They considered themes such as community, inclusion and identity, and how to build a decolonised collection that is reflective of the diversity of the University and its ever-changing student body. It was exciting to hear about the scheme to purchase work from students each year.

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Workflow Seminar

After a busy and varied term of assessments, cover-teaching and initiating an International Women’s Day event to honour bell hooks, I have finally been able to catch up on some of the PgCert sessions I have missed. Sergio’s Workflow seminar was a practical session to guide us through setting up an online portfolio. It was very helpful and easy to follow, and I was grateful for questions put forward by my peers such as overcoming issues in incorporating a blog feed which have helped me to set up mine.

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26 January Learning Outcomes seminar

This was a thought-provoking session, effectively discussing some of benefit of using learning outcomes, as well as some of the problems we encounter in trying to follow a restrictive outcome-based model in the open-ended, creative environment of an art school, as laid out in Allan Davies’ 2012 paper Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem? As Biggs and Tang state in Teaching for Quality Learning at University (2011, p.170) “A common perception is that convergent thinking is what academic ability is about: knowing a lot and getting it right, but that should be only part of the academic story”, and as we set learning outcomes we must make room for divergent thinking.

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