*****RATIONALE*******
I am a lecturer on BA Illustration and Visual Media, a course with large student numbers that operates on a hot-desking basis. Alongside teaching, I practice as an artist and designer. Since starting teaching, I have been trying to promote and facilitate the creation of strong studio culture. I am startled by the fact we call studios these empty spaces with no life, when, I am used to studios being spaces rich with objects, energy and activity.
I have decided to study the studio D305 through examining the temporary things that appear and remain in the space for a bit. I will call them studio leftovers. What are they? Who brought them? Who left them? Why are they there? What do they mean, do, change? How long do they stay there and what does that mean?
>> What am I interested in?
I am interested in hot-desking learning / making environments how they can be used better. What belongs in the studio? What can leftovers tell us about a teaching session? I would like to study this by what is left behind after a studio making session.
>> How is project aligned with social, racial and climate justice and UAL’s goals?
The aforementioned interests link to notions of belonging, inclusivity, diversity and waste and space as a place for community building. The above is aligned with UAL’s Social Purpose, whose goals are summed up by the following 4 points:
- Bring joy, meaning and purpose to our lives: how to make the studio a joyous space?
- Celebrate differences of all kinds: How can studio leftovers invite, welcome and celebrate difference?
- Regenerate our environment. (def: bring new and more vigorous life to (an area, industry, institution, etc.) How can leftovers bring a vigorous life to the space?
- Build more equitable prosperity.
In addition, they are also linked to how one perceives their surrounding environment: the relationship of human and non-human. Hence, this project is also related to the UAL Climate Justice Plan. - >> Why does this matter to me?
- I strongly believe in the generative power spaces can have. A few years ago, while teaching younger ages (5-11) a colleague told me ‘the space is the teacher’. How is this applied to higher education?
- Making takes trust: to the space you are in and those around you. In Sister Corita’s manifesto Rule 1 says: Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while. Do students trust studio D305? How could they ever?
- Studios are also often spaces in which bad drawings lead to long lasting critical friendships, the ones that have helped me sustain a creative practice.
- >> My positionality:
- I am a white European person that was assigned female at birth from an upper class background. I practice as an artist and designer in collaborative and individual, institutional and self organised contexts. As a person that was never taught craft, I struggle with making in front of others and I have found university studios and workshops intimidating settings. Brought up in a meritocratic setting in which ‘hard work gets you places’ I was taught to be an overachiever that might not make the best things but makes loads of it as an expression of effort. I feel strongly about ‘cleaning up after yourself’ as premise for sharing space with respect. Leaving traces is a bad thing.
- Research question and keywords
- What are [hot-desking] studio leftovers and what can they offer to learning?
