Renaissance

X number of years ago, one of the interchangeable ‘arms-length’ wings of UK government came up with “Renaissance in the Regions” http://dmtrk.co.uk/renaissancenorthwest/DB-56/AboutRenaissance.aspx?dm_i=DB,FPW,4KBJA,PKV,1 – the (nowadays marginal) MLA http://www.mla.gov.uk/?campaignkw=MLA-Council “£150 million programme to transform England's regional museums.” Of course the sensible thing to do was to steer well clear of it – which I did. In its spirit of ‘disseminating good practice to the sector’, Renaissance puts out research findings from its activities. They don’t usually catch my attention but this one did:

“Creative Spaces is a programme of research about children's perceptions of museums and galleries, led by CapeUK. Children worked as researchers in four of the Hub museums. Each museum identified a research question, for example: ‘What would an art gallery designed by children contain?’ Then the children worked alongside the adults to find the answer.”

The obvious answer to the research question is such a gallery would be a pile of shite, but with such a daft notion, I couldn’t resist having a look at the report itself. http://i.dmtrack1.net/CmpDoc/2008/479/458_creative_spaces_report.pdf?dm_i=DB,FPW,4KBJA,PLF,1

It was only a quick scan because I am not that interested but one section really identified the scale of the problem:

“During the visit to the gallery, children enjoyed trying on clothes a great deal. However, several of them remarked that the clothes, and more generally the textiles on display, were not art. The visit could have broadened their perception of art or simply provided an indication that an art gallery could also have a play value.” [my italics] Maybe the visit could have broadened their perception of art or simply provided an indication that an art gallery could also have an artistic value.

Islington Mill Art Academy

Back in 1982, I was nearly thrown out of Loughborough College of Art for too persistently challenging the competence of my lecturers. And in 2003 after a brief waste of time at Manchester Metropolitan University's MA, I resigned in disgust at the disorganisation and mediocrity of the poetry lecturers. So I am comfortably in the camp critical of the state of arts education. Higher education has become a business that is less to do with transfer of knowledge or nurturing artists and more to do with administrations that generate fees and 'hit' targets disingenuously pretending that progress is constant. So it was a great pleasure last week to spend some time in conversation with the artists of the Islington Mill Art Academy.

http://www.islingtonmill.com/d.php?r=artacademy

http://www.islingtonmillartacademy.blogspot.com/


The Academy is a fascinating attempt by a group of young artists to education themselves, to develop their practice autonomously. Choosing their own influences, the artists invite practitioners to talk about their work, respond to the work going on and establish a creative dialogue.

Dreamer? Are we the only ones?

Visiting an infant/primary school to discuss possibly curating a community-based commission, I waited in the corridor outside the Headteacher's office before the meeting. On the wall, presumably contributing to the development of young minds that use the corridor, there was a poster with a close-up of a young teenager (wearing make-up) slightly smiling, looking directly out of the picture at the viewer. The caption read:

"dreamer?

but you're not the only one.

achieve economic wellbeing"