INCLUSIVE PRACTICES UNIT: ARTEFACT VERSION 1
Eleni Papazoglou
Context of Artefact
As someone with an utterly western education, my contextual references are often of a western context. As a teaching team, we have had conversations on diversifying references. Some tutors do it automatically, others pay close attention to this (in different ways) and when planning is rushed, the needed attention is not present. There
BA Illustration and Visual Media (LCC) has a padlet page that is integrated on Moodle called ‘Archive of Practitioners’. Both students and staff can add to the pallet board, creating a diverse and polyphonic reference list that students can use. (I believe this was Rachel Davey’s Intervention for the Inclusive Practices Unit a few years back >> big love Rachel Davey). I love this intervention because it is subtle, open ended and non-didactic. It is there to be used by whoever needs it.
Yet sometimes, I feel like students do not use it because they might forget it’s there. So I was thinking as an intervention, finding a good moment with the Y1 / Y2 / Y3 cohorts to do a session of exchanging visual references by using the Archive of Practitioners in which everyone has to add 5 references to the archive and find 5 references that are relevant to them. It could also be a good moment to talk about co-creating curricula, syllabus etc, and what it means to archive. This could also be supported by a talk by an archivist from the LCC Archives, or by poet Rhoda Boateng who worked at the Black Cultural Archives as an archivist.
I also feel like sometimes, there is energy and labour put towards an action that then gets forgotten. I admire Rachel and would like to extend and support her work. How it would feel if we as teaching teams built together?
I will be passing this through the member of staff that implemented the Archive of Practitioners, as well as other members of staff that teach on the course and archivists that work in the university, either in the library or the special archives.
My aim with this intervention is that staff and students diversify the references that are being presented to students. In addition, I want to include student voices to the references that the course gives, and I want students to have the agency to choose where they pull their sources from. Furthermore, I want would like students to develop a critical take on archiving and referencing.
It would be more useful to implement this at the beginning of the academic year so students are aware they can go back to the Archive of Practioners for the rest of the academic year.
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BA ILLUSTRATION AND VISUAL MEDIA
SELF INITIATED PROJECT
YEAR 3 ::: STUDIO LAB
Summary of session:
Often at the beginning of a project we look for inspiration: on location, in libraries and archives, from other practitioners and artists. Yet who decides what is relevant, worth documenting, preserving, recording and holding on to? Who decides what is important and according to what criteria.
This session will explore notions of the archive,
introduce you to a range of sources and ask you to expand our collective archive.
Aims and objectives:
To expand the range of sources from where to draw reference material (Enquiry)
To critically engage with the notion of the archive (Knowledge)
To contribute to the course’s collective archive / database (Communication)
To exchange socio-culturally diverse references with peers (Communication, Enquiry)
Scheme of Work:
10:00—11:30
Introduction and hellos
Introduction to archives: What is an archive?
Who makes it? Who decides what goes in it? What does it do? Who uses it / has access to it?
Potential Guest Practitioners: (invite 2 // )
— Rhoda Adum Boateng, poet and archivist of the Black Cultural Archives
— EJ Scott, Founder of the Museum of Transology
— Erin Liu LCC Archives
— Blanca Garcia Paja, BA IVM Illustration Librarian at LCC Library
Introducing alternative libraries
11:30—12:45:
BREAK (15 mins)
11:45—12:30: BA IVM Artist Reference Archive
Introduce students to the archive.
Everyone in the room / student / guest practitioner needs to add a minimum of 5 links to artists they love on the archive.
Everyone in the room student / tutor / guest speaker need to find 5 artists that are relevant to their practice from the archive.
If we have extra time:
Everyone can order a book they love for the library
12:30—13:30
Nothing exists in an archive until someone decides they should.
You will need to make an archive to help you think through your Independent Project.
What will you archive? It can be a colour, a texture, a form, an object. It can be books or images or lyrics or voice notes, or movements.
- Find at least 10 items / units that make up your library.
13.30—14:00
- Pair up with the person working next to you. Introduce your archives to each other. Help each other to add 3 items to each other’s archive.
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Work for the next session:
You must choose and complete one of the following tasks:
—Categorisation and organisation: Organise your material in minimum 3 different ways. Reflect on the categories you are choosing to work with—what observations are they helping you to make?
How can these observations fuel your project?
—Visit minimum two of the following archives. Find minimum 4 items that can be added to your archive.
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Resources:
Biblioteka
An alternative artist references library
Black Cultural Archives
https://blackculturalarchives.org/collections
The Black Cultural Archives collect, preserve and celebrate the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK and to inspire and give strength to individuals, communities, and society.
The Feminist Library
https://feministlibrary.co.uk/
The Feminist Library is a large archive collection of feminist literature, which is based in Peckham, London. We support research, activist and community projects in this field. The Library is trans-inclusive, welcomes visitors of any gender, does not require registration or membership, and provides an intersectional space for the exploration of feminism.
Materials Library, Institute of Making
https://www.instituteofmaking.org.uk/materials-library
The Materials Library is a collection of some of the most wondrous materials on earth, gathered from sheds, labs, grottoes and repositories around the world. It is a resource, laboratory, studio, and playground for the curious and material-minded to conduct hands-on research through truly interdisciplinary inquiry and innovation.
Museum of Transology: https://www.museumoftransology.com/
The UK’s most significant collection of objects representing trans, non-binary and intersex people’s lives.
National Poetry Library
https://www.nationalpoetrylibrary.org.uk/
The National Poetry Library is the largest public collection of modern poetry in the world and is free to visit.
May Day Rooms Archives
MayDay Rooms is an archive, resource space and safe haven for social movements, experimental and marginal cultures and their histories. Our building in the centre of London contains an archive of historical material linked to social struggles, resistance campaigns, experimental culture, and the expression of marginalised and oppressed groups.
The Women’s Library, London School of Economics
https://www.lse.ac.uk/library/collection-highlights/the-womens-library
The Women’s Library is the oldest and largest library in Britain devoted to the history of women’s campaigning and activism. It was officially inaugurated as the Library of the London Society for Women’s Service in 1926 and it had two aims: to preserve the history of the women’s suffrage movement and to provide a resource for newly-enfranchised women to take their part in public life.
Wellcome Collection Archives
https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/YL9OAxIAAB8AHsyv
At Wellcome we look after hundreds of archives from many different sources, including: health and medical workers and organisations, charities committed to improving health outcomes and care, artists and other individuals, often sharing their lived experiences of health and well-being.
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Glossary:
Archive: a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.
Archivist: Archivists are responsible for assembling, cataloguing, preserving and managing valuable collections of historical information. Archivists work with a wide variety of public and private sector organisations, and, once qualified, may move between a variety of organisations, roles and specialisations.
Catalogue: (noun) a systematic list, (verb) to make a systematic list of (items of the same type), to categorise; to systematise
Collection: the action or process of collecting someone or something.
Collector: a person who collects things of a specified type, professionally or as a hobby.
Cabinet of curiosities: Cabinets of curiosities, also known as ‘wonder rooms’, were small collections of extraordinary objects which, like today’s museums, attempted to categorise and tell stories about the wonders and oddities of the natural world.
Database: an organized collection of structured information, or data, typically stored electronically in a computer system. A database is usually controlled by a database management system (DBMS).
Institution: an organization, establishment, foundation, society, or the like, devoted to the promotion of a particular cause or program
Library: a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for use or borrowing by the public or the members of an institution.
Museum: a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.”the Museum of Modern Art”
Original Order: This refers specifically to the order of an archive collection. The aim is to preserve the order that the creator maintained. For example, an individual might have organised their correspondence alphabetially by person, or by date, or by topic.
Unconscious bias: Unconscious bias is when we make judgments or decisions on the basis of our prior experience, our own personal deep-seated thought patterns, assumptions or interpretations, and we are not aware that we are doing it.
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Readings / Reference List for Reflective Essay:
Ethics: Preserving Voices Vulnerable to Erasure
https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/ethics-preserving-voices-vulnerable-to-erasure/
Lorde, A. (1983) The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle he Master’s househttps://monoskop.org/images/2/2b Lorde_Audre_1983_The_Masters_Tools_Will_Never_Dismantle_the_Masters_House.pdf
University of the Arts London (2018) Student Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Report. [Online] Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/144474/190206_EDI-Report-2018.pdf
Tapper, A (2013) A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment. [Online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264611824_A_Pedagogy_of_Social_Justice_Education_Social_Id entity_Theory_Intersectionality_and_Empowerment
Tate, S (2018) Whiteliness and institutional racism: Hiding behind (un)conscious bias.[Online]Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lur3hjEHCsE
Crilly, J (2019) Decolonising the library: a theoretical exploration. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning. Journal Vol 4 / Issue 1 pp.6-15
Hooks, B (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, pp.167-175.
Vikki Hill, Liz Bunting, Jheni Arboine, ‘Fostering Belonging and Compassionate Pedagogy’,(2020),
<https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/223417/AEM3_FBCP.pdf> accessed
Crilly, J. (2019) ‘Decolonising the library: a theoretical explanation’. Libraries, Archives and Special
Collections, Spark Journal,Vol. 4, No.1. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/123
Freire, P, (1972), Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, Herder and Herder
Gentle/Radical, Available from: <http://gentleradical.org >.
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ARTEFACT VERSION 2: