Written by Professor Linda Drew, ​Creative Education Champion

In February this year I started work advising a University about their existing and new space/studio provision and planning for effective use in the creative art and design courses. I was interviewing staff and students about their perceptions and experiences of using the spaces for learning. Then the lockdown started and even my information gathering phase had to change to a much more virtual mode, and now my whole focus has shifted to advice on how those creative arts students interact and learn to practice when some of those facilities are not accessible. I relate strongly to this statement on the WonkHE blog this week by Paul Greatrix :
‘…Universities are fundamentally communities of scholars and not just the buildings that house them. But the buildings give us a sense of place, identity and solidity; the campus helps make our institutions what they are and generally facilitates rather than hinders the progression of learning and research.’ ( accessed 14 April 2020)

I’ve always believed that value of practice-based creative arts education lies in the practice-based pedagogy, which truly immerses participants in a rich and diverse range of activity designed to develop both a practice identity and competence in tandem. So, what have I learnt recently?

1. Without the space, students can still learn. They can think, observe, act and make. Most importantly they can reflect on action and do this alone, or in discussion – with peers, with tutors. This is happening on the phone, on WhatsApp groups, social media and via online meeting technologies.
2. Universities offering creative arts courses have rallied round to step up virtual resources, be they learning resources (archives, online galleries, guides, tools etc) or interactive e.g. Moodle, Collaborate Ultra, Aula. Most of the former are opening up access to regular resources and students are often familiar already. Creative Art and Design courses have piloted many approaches to interactive online engagement, but take up is patchy across the sector.
3. Universities may claim they’ve ‘gone digital’ in a mere few weeks but the test of this will be how much of this is content driven - useful for a knowledge acquisition focus - and how much is interactive and works with communities of practice in the academy and in the creative industries. Many staff as well as students will need to practice using this kind of exchange in order to become competent and move beyond the practical steps (switching on and getting in) to using the learning space effectively.
4. Students on creative art and design courses want to become practitioners in the creative industries, they want to immerse themselves in the practice by taking part in authentic activities – like being in a studio, exhibiting their work, debating their work with peers. Temporarily that studio is their home or hall of residence, with all of the restrictions and practical issues that involves right now. Home studio will be a reality for many, and it won’t be nearly as well equipped as our University spaces but a kind of learning can take place.
5. If the lockdown, restrictions on travel and how we use buildings persists this will continue to prevent students’ access to specialist equipment.  More innovative approaches to equipment loans will have to be devised. Some specialist Universities (Arts University Bournemouth, Ravensbourne University London) already have extensive equipment loan and risk assessment processes in place.

No sense of place? The University as place may be changed forever by this period of social and economic withdrawal, and creative art and design courses will have to adapt as suggested above to a more flexible sense of place over the coming months and years, growing in ways that can also truly reflect the changes in our creative industries too.

DISCE researchers Roberta Comunian, Tamsyn Dent, Bridget Conor and Chiara Burlina have published this week a new report on “Creative Higher Education in Europe Statistics”. The report – a core part of the research of WP3 (Creative workforce, skills and education) – reviews current data and knowledge in relation to the provision of creative subjects at Higher Education (HE) level across Europe.
The report firstly presents key literature from the field, unpacking some of the main academic contributions to the topic and some of the challenges and limits of current academic research and knowledge. The second part, reports on the main organisations that are currently bringing together providers engaging with creative subjects taught at HE level. Thirdly, it acknowledges how the current framework for Higher Education (HE) provision and monitoring linked to creative subjects across Europe level is captured by some nations (in Europe and beyond) to cover questions in relation to: monitoring data on student population, reflecting on access and participation as well as forms of specialisation and geographical distribution. Furthermore, it considers graduates’ outcomes and creative careers though an examination of relevant alumni research. In the conclusion, the researchers offer some recommendations to highlight what are the key challenges and questions that need to be addressed by future research and policy.
The report was written in early March 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic has taken hold of much of Europe. However, the researchers acknowledge that the recent crisis has also a profound impact on HE provision across Europe. For this reason, researchers within King’s College London (Dr Roberta Comunian, Dr Tamsyn Dent and Dr Lauren England) have launched this week a new website and research project – in collaboration with DISCE. The project entitled ‘Creative Higher Education and the impact of Covid-19’ aims to collect reflections, experiences and perspective from academics and technical staff involved in teaching creative subjects at Higher Education level. The website includes a blog that will host opinion pieces and interventions on key topics. It includes already a reflection on the impact of Covid-19 on teaching practices and one on the potential financial uncertainty of creative higher education.
This project – that has only just started – calls for the involvement of academics and technical staff, that can participate in online discussion or undertake online interviews to feedback on the recent changes and challenges faced by the sector. To get involved, potential participants are asked to complete a brief online form and register.

Written by Dr Silvie Jacobi, London School of Mosaic

London School of Mosaic is an independent provider of art and design education with a focus on mosaic studies. We teach up to a Level 4 Diploma and have a running programme of short courses and specialist symposia. Our mission is not only to further the understanding of mosaic, but foremost to embed it in our community, where we work often with people who are marginalised.
We generate our income from course fees, local offer provision and licensing workspaces for artists and craft makers. We closed the school as of 23rd March, suspended our license fees for studio holders and postponed short courses with some of them being cancelled. Our commissions have come to a halt as staff are unable to travel to the workshop.  As for our diploma students who are studying on a 1-year Level 4 course, they had just finished 2 terms of teaching when Covid-19 struck. After an intensive time learning in our workshop and familiarising with design approaches and traditional mosaic making techniques, at this point they are ready to work independently with tutorial support over the phone and through online conferencing. Of course, there are challenges of working at home with specialist materials and tools, and we have asked students to continue drawing and working with found materials while we are in lockdown. 

We have now reduced our summer course programme, as we expect there to be a decline in course uptake in the short term as we work with some of the most vulnerable in society, some of which have underlying health issues and who will have to continue self-isolating. We have just applied for emergency funding from the Arts Council England to cover the shortfall of earned income, so that we can continue to deliver services to the community when we reopen, in particular young offenders who we support through weekly community service sessions. We are also grateful for the governments’ furlough worker scheme and are yet to apply for reimbursements, so we hope that this will be a smooth process with as little delay as possible.
As a small and niche institution whose HE students are primarily self-funded, in the intermediate term we have to plan for a scenario in which our Diploma course has a lower intake. We could teach some aspects of the course online, but feel that this is not a substitute for the teaching in the workshop. Production costs for online tutorials as well as the shipping of tools and materials are too high at the moment for an audience we cannot estimate. Fortunately, as an independent provider we can tailor teaching to individual students’ needs, even if this means their teaching is extended into the next academic year.   In the long-term we have built ourselves a strong footing in the local community through the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund, awarding us funding to turn an underground parking space into artist studios housing over a hundred artists. This will ensure our sustainability in the long-term while we build a BA programme in Mosaic Studies, which is in the process of being validated. 

Invitation:  The Glasgow School of Arts invites you to attend a research webminar on Thursday 23rd April (4.00-5.00pm) with Prof. Vicky Gunn (also part of the advisory board of our #creativeHEcovid project) talking about Affirming Creativity in a changing economic field: An Art School Perspective.  
Please register via Eventbrite, which will send Zoom details to join the event.