Blog written by Kate Maple, Curator, Showcase Gallery Solent University

​The Showcase Gallery is part of Solent University’s School of Art, Design & Fashion and is a participatory exhibition space in the heart of Southampton with a focus on reaching communities with less voice in the cultural sector.  As a University public facing space, our entire programme of exhibition and events, some of it two years in the planning, has been decimated in a heartbeat by Covid-19.  The uniqueness of this experience, across all cultural venues and organisations across the board, is extraordinary and whilst there is a very real fight for survival, there is also a unique opportunity to rethink how we might balance recovery with reinvention.  It has already changed how we communicate and the Art To Go project was an example of this change in practice.

Whilst many venues were going publicly online with great cultural content, Southampton City Council noted that children in care did not necessarily have easy access to computers and were therefore at risk of being excluded from participation.  Thus the  Art To Go project was devised as a rapid response to address the Council’s concerns and enable the gallery to positively and proactively reach out directly to local young people.  

​Artist Joe Ross devised the concept of filling a pizza box full of art materials and arts activities to be handed directly to young people via key workers and carers who could deliver the boxes safely.  With a callout to other cultural venues to participate, what emerged was a full box with a rich array of activities from galleries, theatres and film organisations, with all the necessary art materials to participate in the tasks.  A vital part of the project were the non-arts organisations such as No Limits and the Council’s Violent Reduction Unit (VRU) who had the infrastructure and expertise to deliver to areas in most need.  

​After an initial 150 boxes were delivered and demand outstripped supply, Art To Go expanded thanks to extra funding from the VRU, Artswork and Arts Council.  Due to the oddness of lockdown, the gallery team had their homes transformed into mini cottage industries filled with paper, arts and crafts materials and numerous pizza boxes stacked up against walls. The evaluation of the project is still ongoing but well over 500 boxes were delivered, with key workers distributing boxes to children in care, local police giving them to young people affected by crime and submissions for our Life in Lockdown window exhibition still rolling in.  There was great investment by all parties involved in the benefit of culture and creative practice to support mental health.

In Southampton, the Covid-19 crisis opened doors and channels of communications directly and rapidly with a decisive shift towards collaborative working between arts and non-arts organisations. With the future uncertain, changing our practice is not only desired but essential. The more imaginative, adaptive and collaborative we can be, the better we can support all people who are at risk of their voices not being heard, at a time of crisis and beyond.
 ​

Written by Dr Roberta Comunian and Dr Lauren England, King's College London

(A survey by Prospects on finalist’s experiences of the effects of COVID19 on their careers has revealed that out of the 1,202 final year university students who responded:  
26% had lost their work placement/internship; 
29% had lost their job;  28% had their job offer deferred or cancelled. 
 
In general, jobs are not likely to be available, with small creative business likely to be focusing on surviving and not thinking of hiring new staff. The Prospects report highlights that 80% of arts, entertainment  and recreation businesses reported temporarily  pausing trade compared to only 5% of IT businesses and 3% of professional or business service 
firms.   
As industries enter survival mode, the pipeline for creative talent is likely to be blocked off at the receiving end, increasing the already fierce competition for creative jobs; a backlog of qualified, experienced candidates is sure to form, leaving limited room of emerging and recent graduates. Opportunities may lie in championing the transferability of creative skills, and for more creative graduates to become “embedded” in non-creative industries, as outlined in the Creative Trident Model.  
 
The call for universities to ‘prepare’ their students and graduates has been getting progressively louder over the last decade. It is perhaps now more important than ever for them to have a realistic understanding of the sectors they seek to work in, and also be aware of opportunities that may lie beyond the creative industries. Nevertheless, being ‘work ready’ is arguably much more challenging to achieve when faced with sweeping uncertainty over the future of work.  
 
The structural integrity of the pipeline for creative graduates in part depends on the (financial) support measures developed for the creative industries, but also concerted effort from policy, industry and the HE sector to address the structural precarity of the sector that predates the crisis.  ​

We will discuss these challenges further this week (Wednesday 17th) during our Zoom Cafe (3-4pm UK time). If you would like to join, register via our get involved page. 

written by Dr. Subir Dey, Assistant Professor at Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

I teach visual communication in one of the most prestigious ‘Institute of Eminence’  that is
renowned for its scientific, engineering and technological contributions. Through my
continuous conversation with colleagues from sciences and engineering it appears to me that
the adaptability to online mode in Design education has to be far greater compared to courses
that require lecture based teaching mostly. My teaching involves lots of spontaneous drawing
on white board for explaining a concept. This practice includes cartoons, symbols, mind
maps and other forms of signs. Sometimes it makes the students laugh other times it makes
them think and question. This very act of sharing a common space with shared emotions will
be highly challenged for Design education. In this context, these are some of the prominent
themes of my contemplation:
1. Online design teaching Vs. Online tutorials: Youtube is filled with video tutorials
in almost any Design subject. There are online platforms like Domestika, Skillshare
etc that are offering lucrative courses for practitioners. The student has access to all
these vast materials at their taps. Why will the student enroll in a design institute? Is it
for the brand of the institute, a degree, certificate, placements or something more? Is
specialisation a way forward for designers ?
2. Integrating online education with the classroom: No Technology can replace the
effect of physical presence of student-teacher dynamics. Physicality is a quality that is
essential for humans to believe and retain as truth. Without observing the body
behaviours, the intonation, the glances, the hand movements, the laughs, the wonders,
the arguments, the silence, how the learner is going to perceive the teaching to be
true? And similarly, how will the educator be satisfied after delivering a concept?
3. Hands-on to Tap-on: Design education is largely a hands-on based model. Subjects
like graphic design, printmaking, illustration, animation, photography, rapid
prototyping, textile design etc require a huge degree of hands-on teaching-learning.
That is part of the essence of these subjects. How does the essence of such subjects
can be kept alive when the interface becomes tap-on?
The communication is surely going to affect in the post-pandemic times. The students will
have aspirations that are similar to pre-pandemic situations. However, the educator's
aspirations will change surely with the changing methodology. On creativity in higher
education there are good scholarly resources explaining different aspects that need to be
addressed. Those should be looked upon by educators for creating a robust framework of
education. But, for now, all eyes are stuck on the statistics of the affected people by the virus.
Still counting and going up!