masters research paper final leo powell

8/2/2019 Masters Research Paper Final Leo Powell

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What do art students' experiences of a placement scheme ('making work outside of the

studio') tell us about the art school studio?

Leo Powell

Masters of Research (Arts and Culture) Final Project

University of Brighton

21st September 2011


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 1

- Background 1

- The CFAP Placement Scheme 1

- Research Questions and Objectives 2

- Study Significance 3

- Layout of Research 3

2. METHODOLOGY 4

- Overview of Project 5

- Qualitative Research Overview and Rationale 5

- Methods for Data Gathering 6

- Participant Selection 13

- Methods for Data Analysis 14

- Research Audience 16

- Summary 17

3. LITERATURE REVIEW 18

- Introduction 18

- The Art Studio 18

- The Post-Studio Paradigm 25

- The Art School Studio and Learning Environment 28

- Summary 34

4. DATA 35

- Themes that emerged 35

- Working from home 36

- Expectations of the placement 38

- Socializing 40

- Difference in work from studio-based to placement-based, and the individuality of

practices 42


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- Working with a computer or laptop 44

- Concerns over assessment 45

- Artistic identity 47

- Audience 48

- Response to the lack of a studio 49

5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 50

- Summary of Literature Review 50

- Summary of Data 51

- Limitations and Scope of Research 52

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY 54


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Introduction

In 1968, when I decided to quit the studio, I hadn't realized all the of the implications. Many

familiar doors were immediately closed to me, although luckily others opened that I hadn't even

been aware of. To not have a studio, as well as to have a studio, automatically implies the

production of a certain type of work. (Buren, 2010 p.165)

Institutions are becoming increasingly aware for the need for ongoing evaluation of the combined

academic and economic effectiveness of their facilities. While still largely believed to be the key

learning setting for art, design and architectural education, the studio is coming under increasing

pressure to prove its value, especially in response to what is often perceived as unacceptably lowspace utilisation by those responsible for the provision and management of physical spaces.

(Duggan, 2004 p.2)

Background

The allocation and uses of studio spaces in art education has been a contested issue for a long time

now (Duggan 2004, Jeremiah 1996). It is an issue which is made all the more prevalent in the light

of a series of recent and fairly drastic budget cuts to the education system at the university level. A

question which is commonly (and reasonably) asked is: how are studios justified, given their space-

hungry requirements and seemingly empty nature? There seems to be no shortage of artists,

bureaucrats, and researchers who have written about the matter, often seeing the question from their

respective fields artists commonly viewing the studio in respect to its uses in art history (usually

as a place for the production of artefacts but not necessarily as a place for teaching), while perhaps

institutions are usually more interested in viewing things in terms of cost effectiveness and various

educational goals. It is in this educational climate that this research paper focuses on the art school

studio.

The CFAP Placement Scheme

This paper studies one fine art course in particular, at the University of Brighton, in the U.K.

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'Critical Fine Art Practice' B.A. (aka 'CFAP'). This academic year (2011), the tutors of CFAP

decided to try a new piece of curriculum for the second year students (aka 'Level 5') for one

semester: specifically, they helped students set up a 'placement' to work at around the university.

These placements were voluntary, and each student decided where they wanted to go. Placements

ranged from the maths department, to working with security guards, and the expectation was that

this would mirror a more realistic approach to an art practice when not under the aegis of the

University, when the students would find themselves working in the 'art world' after their degree.

This idea of students working on a placement is effectively representative of something known as

'post-studio' practices: meaning, the students were not to be working in the art school studio at the

time of the placements, and instead were to be spending some of their time at a site, making and

displaying work away from the studio.

Research Questions and Objectives

The main research question for this project is the following:

What do art student's experiences of a placement scheme ('making work outside of the studio') tell

us about the art school studio?

The fundamental approach of this research is to look at an example of art students practices when

they are notusing the studio environment, and then look to see if there are any real differences in

their practices, attitudes, and habits. By doing this, we can test the current literatures' understanding

of the uses and value of the studio in art education. This research is a qualitative, exploratory, and

inductive case study that seeks to gather data primarily through the use of one-to-one interviews

with the students in question, just after they have completed the semester.

The research question is intended to be broad enough to allow for inquiry into the meaning of the

term 'uses' - while we will be looking at how students make work, it is important not to assume that

making work is the only type of use that a studio can offer. There may indeed be other abstract

'uses', for example the way that people will use a space socially, but not consciously or with

intentions for an outcome. This research can also consider the environmental changes from the

studio to the placement, and how those might affect the students. For example, the studio might

carry with it a certain type of cultural expectation, and the difference will be interesting to note.

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Study Significance

This research is important for a few reasons. Firstly, it takes a rare and unique angle on a well

covered issue, and so has the potential to not only fill gaps in our knowledge, but to unearth

otherwise unknown problems or ideas. This is because the current literature can only look at art

students using studio space, as opposed to art students not using them. Secondly, it merges research

into studio use with historical and art theoretical literature, allowing potential policy makers to see

the studio in an art historical context, and tutors to see the concerns that learning-space researchers

have. As we will see later in the Literature Review, de la Harpe and Peterson find that, among 118

research papers surveyed about art education, the studio was the most discussed topic (2008). It

plays a huge role in art education, as it is currently the central core of any arts course seminars,

socializing, making and displaying work all occur there.

Layout of research

This research paper is laid out in the following order:

Introduction, which should give the reader an understanding of the background of the

project, and outline its goals and interests.

Methodology, which should inform the reader about the methods used in carrying out the

research, as well as giving the reader further insight into the construction of the project and

its rationale.

Literature Review, which aims to provide the theoretical background of the research, while

uncovering new and relevant points of view that help inform the data and outcomes.

Data, which collects the interview data in a coded form and analyses its meaning and

relevance to the main research question, while incorporating any key themes or concepts

that have cropped up in the literature review.

Summary and Conclusion, Which summarises the data and literature review, while taking

into account the research limitations and potential scope of the project.

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Methodology

Research Question

What do art student's experiences of a placement scheme ('making work outside of the studio') tell

us about the art school studio?

Introduction

This methodology aims to explain, support, rationalise, and critique the methods used in this

research. It starts out with an explanation of the research setting, recounting the events that occurredand the methods that were used up until the end of the research project. It is then structured to take

the reader through each method used, highlighting the reasons for their use while being critical of

the limitations of the application of the method and its affect on the research. While interviews are a

form of ethnography, a consideration of ethnography as a broad research approach is included

before the interview rationale although the two sections are closely related. This methodology

also focuses on the methods used in analysing the data, which was written up after the data was

coded. The final chapter, 'Research Audience' briefly outlines the methods used when disseminating

this paper, and who the research is for.

Structure of the Methodology:

1. Overview of Project

2. Qualitative Research Overview and Rationale

3. Methods for Data Gathering

2.a Literature Review

2.b Case Study

2.c A discussion on the ethnographic nature of this research

2.d Interviews

4. Participant Selection

5. Methods for Data Analysis

6. Research Audience

7. Conclusion

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1. Overview of project

To recap, this project focused on a 'placement scheme', a piloted, semester-long change in

curriculum for an art B.A. at the University of Brighton (specifically the 'second year' students of

the course 'Critical Fine Art Practice', aka 'CFAP Level 5'). This scheme was an opportunity for the

students to voluntarily work away from the studio environment and instead at placements around

the University of Brighton (e.g. other course departments in the university), or in some cases at

other organizations.

This research is a qualitative case study using interviews and ethnographic approaches for gathering

data on the use of the placement scheme. The research was also formed by a close and continual

cross-reading of literature throughout the research project. These approaches were used to help usunderstand the studio in art education from a unique angle, and are used to build theory that

explains the uses of the art school studio today.

2. Qualitative Research Overview and Rationale

This research project utilized a qualitative approach to gathering data. According to Cousin (2009

p.31), qualitative research and analysis enables the researcher to:

a) get at complex layers of meaning from research texts or visual data; b) interpret human

behaviour and experiences beyond their surface appearances; c) provide vivid, illuminative and

substantive evidence of such behaviour and experiences; d) build theory inductively from

qualitative data sources.

Qualitative research provides a key framework in which to understand personal experiences, as well

as allowing a correlation of those experiences with related texts, as the project develops (Ibid). The

inductive element as mentioned above is vital when a researcher goes into a particular situation

without a pre-developed theory or particular question, as it gives an important structure to creating,

applying, and restructuring theories from the situation in relation to the literature.

As a research project, the initiation of the data gathering adopted a loose approach. The researcher

did not seek to verify a particular conviction beforehand, but instead gathered data through

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conversation with students (and a literature review) in order to generate theories about the situation,

which would feed back into the situation, creating new ideas and so on. In this sense the research

takes an inductive approach, in that it is 'exploring theory from the data rather than theory testing' -

for this research, if we simply test pre-existing theories of the art school studio, we run the risk of

forcing the data to tell us what we are looking for (Cousin 2009 p.34).

3. Methods for Data Gathering

3.a Literature Review

The literature review for this research project functions in two ways: firstly, it informs the data

gathering component by providing a theoretical framework in which to formulate key interview

questions. Secondly, it provides a theoretical framework in which to understand the data. So in this

regard, the literature review is important for shaping the direction of the research as well as its

conclusion. To say the literature only generated theory to form questions is inaccurate, however, as

it neglects to mention the time in which the literature was read it was really a matter of reading

back and forth from the literature to the ethnographic study of the placement scheme. Only a small

portion of the literature was collated in the beginning, with most of the literature being added as key

concepts arose this approach confirms the link that Cousin (2009 p. 137) makes between a case-

study and a literature review when she says that it

is not about undertaking a literature review before entering the setting, rather it concerns

stimulating the formulation of research questions for the beginning of the study; it also concerns

securing a continual engagement with the theory through the empirical research process.

It is this 'back and forth' reading between the research situation and the literature which is at the

heart of the structure of this research approach.

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3.b Case Study

Following Stake (1995), this research project adopts a form of case study that could be classified as

an instrumental case study, in which our concern is to relate the data from the interviews with the

situation the students are in (using studios/not using studios), while keeping in mind how it affects

related scenarios more broadly (other art education studios). This differs from a collective case

study, in which it would be appropriate to consider several instances of similar cases, in order to

compare and contrast so that we may gather data.

This research adopts Stakes' perspective that 'the real business of a case study is particularization,

not generalization' (1995 p.8). Stake further clarifies that our task is to know a particular case well,

not just to know how it differs from other cases but what is happening within the case, and what thecase does.

To take this point further, the case study for this research directly influenced the criteria used to pick

which students participated in the interviews. This is outlined further from another angle in

'Participant Selection' below, but it is important to mention here because it pertains to the value of

the case study as a form. For this research the case study focused on the difference in students

perspectives from 'using studios' to 'not using studios', as opposed to looking at a wider sample of

students from different studios on different courses. Specifically, this was done to understand the

students shift in their perspectives on the on studio and how it related to their art practices.

One of the key problems with this approach is that it runs the risk of being too parochial with the

data that is gathered, but as Cousin (2009 p.134) points out, case studies have the potential to test

pre-existing 'grand generalizations' (for example, in this instance, whether or not the studios are

important for a sense of community). Overall, the case study as a theoretical framework for this

research project is valuable but not the whole picture, and in many ways blends with ethnographic

orientated approaches to engaging with the students of CFAP.

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3.c A discussion on the ethnographic nature of this research

This research paper utilizes interviews as its main data gathering method but before we discuss

the precise nature of the interviews, it is worth considering the ethnographic framework in which

those interviews were considered and then implemented. This section will briefly describe the

events that lead up to the interviews during the research project, as it considers them part of an

ethnographic framework. It will then discuss issues and events that elucidate the reasons for the

approach in data gathering, as well as discussing the effects of the power-balance between the

students and researcher on the data.

Pre-interview events

The researchers' involvement with the students began right at the beginning of the research project,

two months into the CFAP year, in which the researcher was introduced to CFAP Level 5 as

someone who is interested in researching the placement scheme. This was organized by informally

discussing with the tutor of CFAP Level 5 the nature of the placement, and whether or not it would

be suitable to interview the students, and/or centre a research project around the placement scheme.

The feedback from the tutor was positive, and so the research project continued to be developed.

The researcher reconfirmed twice with the students and tutor the idea of the research project (and

the potential for interviewing the students about their experiences), once halfway through the year

and again before the interviews were decided. During the time of the placement scheme, the

researcher was invited to (and present at) several CFAP class discussions, seminars, and 'crits'

(which are seminars that discuss the students work) by the teacher, and on some occasions by the

students.

It was noted in passing during the first informal meeting that this research was perhaps a variation

of the students' placements I.e. The researcher was on a kind of placement with CFAP, researching

the placement scheme. Incidentally, this viewpoint was mirrored when it was discovered that two

separate students were working at placements that included artists' studios (interviewing the artists!)

and an art school. The effect of this was that the students were far more likely to see the researcher

on an equal footing, with the research functioning as a continuation of a reflexive dialogue on the

placement scheme.

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Ethnographic Overview

There are some obvious good points in favour of ethnographic research in education, particularly

that it focuses on learningfrom people, as if they were teaching the researcher about their

experiences, rather than the researcher just studying them (Cousin 2009 p.109). Cousin also notes

that an ethnographic approach is useful when the researcher is mediating between two separate

communities in this case there are several communities that the research indirectly mediates,

including estates management, students, and art tutors.

Where it seems a good move, efforts can be made to establish some form of commonality between

the interviewer and the interviewee. (Ibid p.75)

In this research project, the researcher sought to enter into a complex dialogue with the students as

an equal, as opposed to being an outsider with unknown authority looking to prospect for

information. Dealing with the power balance was tricky but in many ways a key consideration

regarding the efficacy of the methodology.

The interviewer needs to do his/her best to minimize the power present in the interview by, for

instance, disclosing their relevant experiences and by facilitating an exploratory thrust rather than

an information prospecting one (Ibid p.76)

As Cousin says:

It is ultimately about trust: if the person who you interview doesn't trust you, they are likely to be

quite distanced, and accordingly give you untrustworthy responses. (Ibid)

From the wrong angle, 'getting to know' a group of people for with the intention of purely mining

data can seem insidious. The researcher was careful not to take such a cynical approach, and didn't

view things as a matter of 'data mining'. Cousin (2009, p. 21) makes an important point when she

says that power cannot be designed out of research it needs to be reflexively built in, with efforts

to keep the imbalance to a minimum.

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3.d Interviews

Overview

The interviews were done on a one-to-one basis, with each CFAP Level 5 student that showed an

interest in being interviewed (see Participant Selection below). The interviews were suggested at

two separate times in the year to the whole class, which was finally followed up with individual

emails confirming the students' interest, which also inquired as to the best time and place for each

student to do the interviews. A suggested place was the University of Brighton caf garden - the

conditions of which were ideal in summer, quiet and in shelter away from noise pollution. It is also

an easily accessible and well known place.

Before the interviews were conducted, the students were given an information sheet that re-

confirmed the purpose and goal of the interviews/research project the researcher had gone over

the research project twice before in person via a group presentation with Q&A, the purpose being

that it would allow the students to understand the research more clearly in advance.

Finally, the students were given consent forms to sign, just before the interviews took place (the

consent form and research project was subject to an ethics committee overview). The interviews

were recorded on digital audio recorder, and no notes were taken during the interview process

(reason discussed below). Each interview lasted on average 25 minutes.

Interview Rationale

Semi-structured, one-to-one interviews with the students was decided to be the best way to learn

about the students experiences of the placement scheme, as:

Semi-structured interviews allow researchers to develop in-depth accounts of experiences and

perceptions with individuals. By collecting and transcribing interview talk, the researcher can

produce rich empirical data about the lives and perspectives of individuals (Cousin 2009 p.71)

Particularly when dealing with a group of people who have extremely different approaches towards

their work, semi-structured interviews really cater for complex qualitative experiences (Cousin

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2009 p.72). However, interviewing people about complex experiences, (particularly art students

whose curriculum often favours free flowing, tangential dialogue during 'crits' (Elkins 2001 p.123)

doesn't mean that the interview structure itself should be overly complex, and it was important to

maintain some structure, if only to work around or with (Cousin 2009 p.71). This separates the

method from completely unstructured interviews, but as Cousin (Ibid) points out, semi-structured

and unstructured are very similar in any scenario a good interviewer will always have a structure

of some kind.

So, the goal of the interviews was two fold: firstly, to collect factual data (e.g. what type of

placement the students went to), and secondly to explore the students responses to questions which

aimed at understanding the experiences and approaches to that data. The two were intertwined, and

so it seemed more appropriate than, for example, questionnaires or unstructured interviews. There isanother important element to such an approach: the research was itself evolving as the questions

were being written and as they were being spoken - so an active response to such questions

allowed a more flexible approach that could accommodate for new concepts emerging as the actual

interviews went on.

The themes explored in the questioning ranged from the technical uses of space to the students

opinions on the nature of the placement scheme, and how it related to their individual practices.

For example:

Interviewer: What was your practice like in the last year and up until the placement scheme?

Interviewer: What were your expectations before starting the placement scheme?

Other thoughts on the interview process

The potential difference in each students approach towards the interview questions is of key

importance, as it affects the way in which questions are structured and the data is understood. Each

student might view a phrase or term differently (for example, 'the studio'), but this difference can

add new interpretations and ideas to the conversation and the research. The spoken word is often

ambiguous (Cousin 2009 p.73), and we can see that this is both a problem and a positive aspect of

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semi-structured interviews. One always runs the risk of either not managing to communicate a point

or worse to simply miscommunicate, potentially causing damage but again new interpretations

can be very valuable.

Building rapport and embellishing responses are also important. Several times the researcher

recounted a tangential anecdote, only to find that the end of the anecdote would engender a

response from the interviewee that related to the research. This was done to put the interviewee at

ease when they seemed anxious (or like they were being fixated on), in order to give them breathing

space to think about their responses and ideas. It also served to give back to the conversation

without steering it too directly or giving away the researchers bias in a direct sense: the tangential

story seemed to be a powerful tool here, whereas to add to the conversation by giving a direct

opinion might have cut the interview short. This allowed the interviewees to respond with stories oftheir own, which often seemed to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand.

This is supported by Holstein and Gubriums' (1997 p.125), 'active interviewing', which finds the

'interviewer offering interpretations, connections, ideas, and possible conceptual hooks to support

an explicit, dialogic meaning-making direction for the interview.'

The idea then is to think with the interviewee, translating their language and perspective, and re-

framing it for further communication in the very same dialogue to suggest 'horizons of meaning'.

(Cousin 2009 p.74). This supports Cousin's (Ibid p.73) conviction that

meaning is not merely elicited by apt questioning nor simply transported through respondent

replies; it is actively and communicatively assembled in the interview encounter.

The researcher opened up with what Cousin (2009 p.85) refers to as a 'tour' question, asking the

students more broadly about their work and practices up until the point in the placements. In some

cases, this offered a good way into the conversation, and in others this ended up with the

interviewee overlapping responses to future questions. This was as problematic as it was useful it

often forced a rephrasing of questions (going over the same question from different angles), and the

responses were quite focused as opposed to being purely tangential, which at the very least showed

the extent to which the placements resonated with people. Cousin takes the concept of a 'fuzzy

generalization' from Bassey (1998) and applies it to research practice, when she makes an important

point about the use of language when analysing a case study:

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Bassey suggests that we should tone down any talk of probability by using 'may' rather than 'will':

e.g. our case studies show that if students do not undertake fieldwork, they may have difficulties in

learning to think like geographers (Cousin 2009 p.135).

This is helpful to keep in mind when reading the data from the student interviews for this project, as

the wording was careful not to stamp certainties when common themes were recognised (e.g. Most

students seemed to sense an effect on their perception of the identity of their art practices).

4. Participant Selection

The choice of who to interview and the amount of students interviewed is important to mention.The criteria for student selection was:

1. The student must be in the 2nd year (Level 5) of CFAP

2. The student must have at least a minimal involvement with the placement scheme

3. The student must be interested in talking to the researcher about their experiences

The first point is essentially a matter of describing the year group that were involved directly with

the placement scheme although is it not to say that it was purely a neutral decision, as the other

two year groups were considered in the criteria but left out. The other two year groups had

experiences of the studios at CFAP, but not of the placement scheme this research gathered data

on the difference between the placement scheme and the studio in the students practice, not between

students practices generally in studios.

The second point is contentious and difficult to measure, as 'minimal involvement' can include the

students not actually going on any placements but it is very difficult to talk to students who have

had no involvement (those who opted out of going on placements). The researcher asked to talk to

students who opted out of the placement scheme, but they were not forthcoming. The key to take

away from this is that the research focuses on an active dialogue to understand concepts, and it is

not just a matter of gathering feedback on how the placements were or were not engaged with, even

if that data is also useful.

The third point, which required only students who were interested in talking, leaves out a

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potentially important selection of opinions from the disinterested ('why were they disinterested?'

being the key question). This is a logistical, ethical, and theoretical concern. It is very difficult to get

people to want to talk for 30 minutes when they are not interested, and it is not ethical to force

them. The researcher wanted students who were willing to engage in a more active conversation,

being able to talk about their practices and reason for their opinions on the placement scheme. It

should be noted, however that this approach allows for not just those who are talkative or have a

strong opinion it can also include quite shy students without strong views who are perhaps

intrigued by the notion of talking to a researcher about the placement scheme.

A final point to mention here is that the hosts of the placements were not interviewed this would

have been useful but not vital (they can only tell us about the way the students engaged with the

placement scheme, and what their thoughts were about the placement scheme, not about the artschool studio), and logistically it was too difficult to implement for this research.

5. Data analysis

Following Boeije's (2010 p.96) guidelines, this research project uses a process of open coding. The

basic structure for this is as follows:

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This type of approach is particularly useful when analysing the data from a small case study. Simply

put, coding is the process of separating the data into meaningful parts. It is worth quoting

Jorgensen's summary in full:

The analysis of qualitative data is dialectical: data are disassembled into elements and

components: these materials are examined for patterns and relationships, sometimes in connection

to ideas derived from literature, existing theories, or hunches that have emerged during fieldwork

or perhaps simply common-sense suspicions. With an idea in hand, the data are reassembled,

providing an interpretation or explanation of a question or particular problem; this is synthesised,

then evaluated and critically examined; it may be accepted or rejected entirely or with

modifications; and, not uncommonly, this process then is repeated to test further the emergent

theoretical conception, expand its generality, or otherwise examine its usefulness (Jorgensen, 1989p.111)

With this in mind, the coding looked for common words and common themes. As the interviews

were an adaptive process, the questions sometimes naturally shifted towards following a line of

inquiry. As such, certain common themes in the data may have been exacerbated the idea in this

case is that those themes were important but latent, and by inquiring further we could determine

their importance. In other cases, themes emerged entirely by surprise at the end, and so weren't

adapted towards. In general, the data was divided into themes and key words, with 'themes' relating

to more abstract concepts that arose from within the data, but that weren't always explicit.

Generally, the approach was simply to collect all common words and subjects and then determine

their importance at the end of the interviews. As Boeije (2010 p. 98) puts it:

In open coding, doing (actually assigning a code) and thinking (coming up with good questions and

codes) converge.

While there are many types of coding and analysing data, coding has its roots primarily in

'Grounded Theory'. Instead of attempting a version of coding that follows very closely to the

grounded theory approach, this paper is much looser, following a process of open coding as outlined

by Boejie (Ibid). This process is as follows:

1. Read the whole document.

2. Re-read the text line by line and determine the beginning and end of a fragment.

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3. Determine why this fragment is a meaningful whole (text belongs together and deals with

mainly one subject).

4. Judge whether the fragment is relevant to the research.

5. Make up an appropriate name for the fragment i.e. a code.

6. Assign this code to the text fragment.

7. Read the entire document and code all relevant fragments.

8. Compare the different fragment, because it is likely that multiple fragments in a text address

the same topic and they should therefore receive the same code.

For example, several students mentioned the term 'home' even though a question wasn't asked about

home; this was a surprise that was quite noticeable as the interviews went on. Subsequently, while

the original questions were still asked in the same way, a follow up question about the home waspermitted, in the event of it not being mentioned.

The benefits of this approach are flexibility and openness to new elements: it is also inductive, in

keeping with the general approach of this research process. There were, however, some issues with

this approach. Firstly, the very openness leads to problems of themes overlapping, which can

confuse the importance of certain concepts over others. Practically, this is noticeable in the 'data

section' as certain concepts are introduced in some quotes that have more importance in another

theme. As always, it is a matter of balance, and to separate each theme or code-word to a fine

degree would make complex analysis difficult, in that the themes were naturally related. To merge

the themes more than they are is also problematic, as it makes it difficult to distinguish the

importance of concepts, and the analysis would degenerate into a general discussion. Another issue

with this research is the fact that the analysis was undertaken by a single person, which, as Boeije

(2010 p.106) says:

It is recommended that researchers work in a group instead of on their own. Having others to

confer with contributes to a well-developed system, thereby ensuring that certain fragments are

systematically awarded the correct code. This is known as inter-rate reliability.

This does not mean, however, that the research wasn't drafted and checked, but simply that to work

with someone else actively as you code word-by-word is advisable as it helps limit bias or blind

spots. In this research, the solo element will have to be taken into account when reading the data to

some degree.

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6. Who is this research for?

This research is intended to be informative for, and of interest to, the following:

Estates management and administration in higher education

Academic researchers in the arts with an interest in art studio culture

Art tutors in higher education

It was decided that research into the use of art school studios was best formulated as a research

paper, as it would communicate with the above groups most directly. The research is pitched to be

read alongside current literature on art school studios and academic space design.

7. Summary

This is a complex qualitative case study that uses ethnographic approaches which have aided the

framework for the interviews, which are in turn used to gather data and construct theory. It takes

into account the literature as a key part of this process, placing greater importance on an inductive

approach, while recognizing that the approach to the literature itself allowed room for the specificmethod of cross-reading related fields. The in-depth interviewing process, coupled with the cross-

reading provides future studio researchers who look at the studio from a variety of angles a common

point of understanding. The interview was considered the best method not only for understanding

the students experiences, but for the value of generating new hypothesis between the students and

the researcher.

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Literature Review

Research Question

What do art students' experiences of a placement scheme ('making work outside of the studio') tell

us about the uses of the studio in art education?

Introduction

This literature takes an overview of three closely interrelated fields of study, in order to help us

understand a fourth, also interrelated but lesser-researched field.

Specifically, these fields can be defined as:

1: The art studio the technical uses of the art studio, its relationship to art practices, and its history.

2: The post-studio paradigm which here amounts to an overview of post-studio art practices and

ideas.

3: The art school studio the technical uses of the art school studio, its relationship to students and

practices, the social/economic effects on the art school studio, and its history.

The fourth field, which can be thought of as the post-studio art school studio (referring to the art

school studio in light of the post-studio paradigm), is related to the data from the CFAP placement

scheme case study. This literature review should provide information on the other fields, in order to

help us understand the placement scheme - in this sense the placement scheme is being considered

as an example of a post-studio art school studiocurriculum.

There is a certain difficulty when discussing the studio, however, in that these fields all heavily

overlap to pull them apart is as problematic as lumping them together, so it is partly this review's

job to suitably thread a narrative that manages to distinguish the fields while knitting the common

threads together. Looking at the studio and post-studio is important as it informs our understanding

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of the art school studio, which is itself important to help us understand the art school studio in a

post-studio art context in this case it helps us analyse the results of the CFAP placement scheme.

Included below is a diagram that should help the reader associate themselves with the fields in

question, to keep in mind as they read.

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1. The Art Studio

Literature overview

Literature on the art studio seems to either describe the physical design of different studio spaces

(Jacob and Grabner 2010, Madoff 2009), or the function of such spaces (Buren 1979, Duggan

2004, Jacob and Grabner 2010, O'Doherty 2007), with some literature focusing on the ideological

effect and historical background of the spaces that artists work in (Crimp 1993, Doherty 2009,

O'Doherty 2007). The studio is commonly considered in relation to the history and theory of labour

and economics (Molesworth 2003), in relation to theories of display (Crimp 1993, O'Doherty 2007,

Buren 1979), or in relation to the studios pedagogic lineage (Duggan 2004, Jeremiah 1996, Madoff2009). The art studio is frequently spoken about as a place of production, display, work, community,

a place for networking, dialogue, learning/teaching, thinking, planning, and usually a place with a

lot of mess. (Buckley and Conomos 2009, Buren 1979, Elkins 2001, Jacob and Grabner 2010,

O'Doherty 2007).

A short history of the studio

Before we consider the idea of the studio today, it is useful to chart the historical, cultural, and

economic progression of the studio. One of the earliest conceptions of the artist's studio is the

'atelier model', originating in the Renaissance period. The atelier model is best characterised by a

master-pupil teaching relationship, in which a small team of artisans were lead in instruction by a

master, producing works such as paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Elkins (2009) notes that, in

the shift from the atelier model during Renaissance times to the Modernist archetype at the turn of

the 20th century, many of the traditional skills and practices that were found in the atelier model

were lost. As the art market and artistic culture changed, the atelier model faded away from art

practices and was replaced by the 'artist alone in a studio' (it is important to note however that this

was not the case with Architecture).

When we think of the studio, we might think of the work of Brancusi, Mondrian, Picasso, Pollock,

or the image of the lone artist in a small room and here we are effectively talking about Modernist

art. Crimp (1993 p.98) reminds us however that

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art as we think about it only came into being in the Nineteenth century, with the birth of the museum

and the discipline of art history, for these share the same time span as Modernism. For us, then,

arts natural end is in the museum, or, at the very least, in the imaginary museum, that idealist space

that is art with a capital A.

We can see here that with the turn to Modernism came a concern not just for the studio as a place of

production, but as a place linked to a newly forming art market, with new models for the display of

art. O'Doherty (2007) notes the addition of the portable 'frame' to paintings as a device that served

the art market of early Modernism, allowing the paintings to be displayed on salon walls, and

eventually in the newly constructed public museums and galleries. In this instance, the studio

started to become a place in which collectors would come to survey possible sale opportunities.

Buren (2010 p.162) saw the studio as a Modernist archetype, and today we tend to think of this as

the 'conventional (proper) studio' (Grabner 2010 p.5) . Buren's account of the studio is famous, and

it serves as a snapshot of the function of the studio from the perspective of an artist in the 1970's.

He describes the art studio as a place where 'the work' originates, as a private place, and a stationary

place where portable objects are produced. He later said of his seminal 1971 essay 'The Function of

the Studio' that his perspective was still more or less accurate today (Buren 2010). The main

changes being that the artist's perceptions of a studio are now much vaguer, despite the studio still

being the main place of work for most artists (Ibid p.163). He clarifies that his key point is that the

function of an art studio is for an artist to make work that is destined to be installed somewhere else

an ideal space, possibly a museum. He also makes the point that the studio engenders processes

that work in favour of a certain type of market, concluding that the subsequent work produced from

the studio tries to function as a nomadic object with an endearing exchange value.

Grabner outlines a classic conception of the studio when she says:

The auratic tradition of the Modernist studio designated it as a place set aside for the production of

autonomous work the site, often, of disengaged artistic labour, where, in isolation, discrete

aspects of artistic competence were explored and refined. (Jacob and Grabner 2010 p.1)

She also notes, however, that

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the Modernist Studio was not always a solitary lair shut off from the world. It also functioned as a

place of instruction, a hub for social exchange and collective work(Ibid).

This is worth keeping in mind, as the shift from a studio-based set of art practices to a 'post-studio'

paradigm isn't just as simple as a progression from a lone artist to a social artist. Many things that

are associated with post-studio practices were present in studio practices, and vice versa. We will

come back to this point in the next chapter.

Regarding the studio in contemporary practices, it's important not to assume that the studio is some

sort of pure space for art that happens to find itself skewed by an art market: the studio and the

gallery are intimately linked. As Fraser (2004 p.411) points out:

The institutionalization of art in museums or its commodification in galleries cannot be conceived

of as the co-optation or misappropriation of studio art, whose portable form predestines it to a life

of circulation and exchange, market and museuological incorporation.

Jones (2010) finds that the studio started to be transformed by mechanistic production in the 1970's,

with artists issuing designs to be carried out by other artists or trade craftsmen. This appeared to

have two affects: it affected the uses of the studio, and in turn affected practices, in a cyclical

manner. The studio started to allow other authors into its enclosure, as was the case with Andy

Warhol's 'Factory', and the potential for collaborative art practices emerges strongly - first as

hierarchical domination, and then as a genuine state that questions authorship (Jones 2010 p.296).

This seems surprisingly similar to the atelier studio, but it is important to state the crucial

difference: the mechanization of production de-skilled the authorial artist-master (of course, this is

not to say that a new, different type of authority couldnt emerge that of the artist celebrity and

artist group-branding).

The Function of the Studio Today

We have broached the idea that the studio may be subject to change as a response to the artistic

culture and art market of different time periods, and that the studio is a place for the production of

portable artefacts. We also can see that the Modernist archetypal studio is the dominant conception

of what an art studio might be. However, this doesnt really say much about the uses of the studio in

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professional art practices today. This section introduces themes that we will return to later in regards

to the art school studio, while also seguing into the post-studio setting.

Buren's argument that the studio has a much vaguer identity today is echoed by Storr (2010, p. 49)

when he recounts an almost exhaustive list of what it means to say 'I am going to work in the

studio'. That list includes

the living room, a bedroom, the basement, the attic, an attached or free standing garage, a coach

house in the back of a grand old house, a store-front downstairs...

Storr accounts for a common thought when he says that

The bottom line is that artists work where they can and how they can.(Ibid).

Much of the literature refers to a 'Romantic attachment' that artists may have to the Modernist

Archetype (Jones 2010, Renfro 2009), and that this is an ideological, identity forming conception

for many artists today. Buren also talks about the studio, not just as a place, but as an ossifying

custom of art (2010 p.287), which would also seem to refer to the studios capacity to help constitute

the custom of an artist. However, as Jones (2010 p.296) points out, 'the romance of the studio had

been predicated on the exclusion of the other, and by extension, the critique of that romance might

suggest the potential for their inclusion and the possible origin of a practical political result'.

How else might the studio function today? According to Renfro (2010), the studio might be seen as

an office, in which it is a space for planning, reading, meeting, and telecommunication to get jobs

done. In this scenario, the artist may even outsource the technical production of the work to various

types of tradesmen (graphic designers, printers, foundries, etc) which itself is an evolution of the

factory type model of production.

Relyea (2009) notes the shift in the political perception of studio, finding that while much of what

Buren spoke about is still true (the studio as a part of a complex set of art institutions, for example),

people rarely speak any more about the ideological implications of the studio. The dominant focus,

she claims, is on the studio as part of (or facilitating a) network.

Along with the rise of networks comes a new ideology, one that advertises agency, practice, and

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everyday life (Relyea 2009 p.345)

Relyea questions Buren's assertion that the studio remains as an ivory tower in todays world, a

private place of production. For Relyea, the studio is an integrated social element of the artist's life,

not so much a physical place for an artist to work in isolation, but more of a visible node in an

extended art network,

where she or he is always plugged in and online, always accessible to and by an ever more

integrated and ever more dispersed art world(Ibid p.349)

The next chapter focuses more on the studio in a post-studio art climate, and the significance of

post-studio practices and ideas.

2. The Post-Studio Paradigm

In this chapter we will look at what 'post-studio' means, and consider the state of the studio in post-

studio practices. We will then focus a little more on the issues and concepts that surround the post-

studio paradigm.

'Post-studio practices', as a phrase, can be confusing because it would appear to describe either a

negation of the studio ('no-studio', perhaps), or possibly a specific type of art practice - neither of

which is particularly true. It is more of an umbrella term that can be used to describe a large variety

of art practices that move beyond the modernist studio archetype, each in their own way for their

own reasons. For example, practices which are considered as Land art, Relational Art, Institutional

Critique, and Performance Art may be considered as post-studio types of practice. The term 'post-

studio' may refer to practices that incorporate the studio or similar spaces, or perhaps practices that

require similar functions of studio based art (a space for reflection or construction for example).

If we look at the concept of site-specific work, for example, it is possible to see one aspect of a

post-studio practice. Crimp (1993) sees site specificity as something that was introduced with

minimalist art practices the 1960's, as minimal sculpture redefined its position in regards to the

viewer, creating a dialogue about its own history and forcing a similar reflective position on its

audience. Subsequently,

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The coordinates of perception were established as existing not only between the spectator and the

work, but among spectator, artwork, and the place inhabited by both. (Crimp 1993 p.145)

Generally speaking, site specificity is located to and only to a specific site in the world. This differs

from something like 'land art' in that, while land art had the same classification, it specifically

focused on reconfiguring the material earth, and it is bound to a physical location, as opposed to a

contextual frame. As Crimp (1993 p.154) says of a site specific work,

if its site were to chance, so would the interrelationship of object, context and viewer. Such a

reorientation of the perceptual experience of art made the viewer, in effect, the subject of the work,

whereas under the reign of modernist idealism this privileged position devolved ultimately to the

artist, the sole generator of the artworks formal relationships.

There are three things to draw out from this firstly, that context is a key component in creating and

understanding site specific works (as opposed to it being a matter purely of a physical site),

secondly that this re-orientation of sculpture focused on the viewer as the subject of the work, and

thirdly that this can be contrasted with the previous modernist approaches towards art, which was

concentrated on the idea of the artist as the sole creator of formal meaning-making structures.

Renfro (2009) sums up a type of post-studio practice, and post-studio space rather well when he

states that:

Equally prophetic in considering the space of the studio are artists who forgo the making of

products altogether and whose art is embedded in constructed situations or performative acts that

take their meaning through their insertion into the real world. (Renfro 2009 p.165)

His next remark is also worth quoting in full:

These 'post-studio' practices suggest that work space can often be nothing more than an office

where the conception of the piece and the logistics of its fabrication can be realized over the phone

and the internet(Ibid)

Essentially, in a post-studio paradigm, immaterial work and labour become more central to art

practices, and the studio is subsequently rendered as a workspace or tool that is flexible and

accommodating of such work. Molesworth (2003 p.39) makes the connection between economic

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forces and the change in artistic practices, finding that with the shift in the types of labour that

artists could engage in (moving away from only being 'creators of portable objects'), they responded

partly by adopting 'participatory strategies, directly involving the audience in the art'.

She goes on to summarize:

It follows that in the absence of traditional artistic skills and concrete objects, the artists studio, the

space of artistic production, became a highly charged arena. Bruce Nauman laconically presented

the problem as follows: If you see yourself as an artist and you function in a studio... you sit in a

chair or pace around. And then the question goes back to what is art? And art is what an artist

does, just sitting around in a studio. (Ibid)

This last comment highlights the problem in the transition for artists to newer types of art practices,and how the studio played a key role in that transition. It also points to the possibility that the artists

work is influenced by the studio and as Nauman says, if the artist identifies with the studio and

finds it difficult to move beyond that, it can lead to a self-reflexive stalemate.

So far, we might say that the development of post-studio practices focused more on where work

takes place, than what it is made of, and we might say that the audience begins to take a more

central role in the understanding and creation of meaning in works (and later, with relational

aesthetics, the works themselves). With Krauss' (1979) realization of the expanding fields in art,

there was also a more heterogeneous array of different types of art practices that emerged, and each

practice began to have different requirements for workspaces.

It is worth looking here specifically at the Artists Placement Group (APG), as they represent a well

formed and early example of the artist in a post-studio, site specific, socially aware state. It is also

worth reviewing because they were a formative part of CFAP's own placement scheme. In the

1960's, the APG were a group of artists run by John Latham and Barbara Steveni, whose goal it was

to place artists in various institutions and companies around England, for example Esso Petroleum

or British Rail, in order to make art and see the effects of such a cross over (Eleey 2007) . Their

central tenet was 'context is half the work', and as Eleey notes:

With this is mind APG sought to re-frame the traditional patronage relationship, aiming to integrate

artists into a participatory role in business matters and decision-making at their host organizations

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Part of the difficulty with reviewing the APG is that this was a rather ad-hoc goal, whose motives

and potential outcomes were unknown. Despite this, the co-ordination between artists and

corporations was a water shed moment, with un-sureness and naivete on both sides, and occasional

hostility (Eleey 2007). As Bishop (2010) puts it:

Arguably, the APG anticipated New Labours tendency to quantify arts social contributions via

statistical analysis (audience demographics, marketing, visitor figures, etc.). It could even be

argued that APG pre-empted the use of artists by management consultancies and that it was a

harbinger of the growth of the art-business symbiosis (i.e., the creative industries) so essential to

the current spirit of capitalism. So perhaps APG did presage social changeif not the kind it had in

mind.

And,

So although the placements sometimes resulted in the production of film or sculpture, this was

somewhat beside the point for Latham and Steveni. Dialogue was more important...

These points are worth keeping in mind, as the CFAP placement scheme was largely influenced by

the APG, and it could be the case that there are great similarities between the two. Overall, the

issues of context, audience, and heterogeneity of practices are important developments to the

culture and uses of the studio, and will be kept in mind when considering the art school studio and

learning environment.

3. The Art School Studio and Learning Environment

This chapter will look at the history of the art school studio and how the art studio is generally used

in higher education.

The art school studio is one of the most discussed elements of art education. According to de la

Harpe and Peterson (2008), after surveying 118 journal papers they found it to be the most

researched subject among art academics. They found that research focused on studio reforms, often

questioning the studio as a potentially outdated site for art education, with common assumptions

that its associated practices and pedagogies lacked rigour. As de la Harpe and Peterson (2008 p.7)

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note, 'discussion about the studio is also dominated by the financial viability of the studio mode'.

This is a common concern that is also echoed in Duggan's (2004 p.4) trigger paper on the art school

studio. She finds that

The problem is seen to be the resource-hungry nature of both studio teaching methods (namely one-

to-one tutorials and group reviews of 'crits') and the quantity of space required. (Ibid)

Other issues include the discussion of the art school in relation to the contemporary art market and

gallery contexts (Pujol 2010, Jonker), and the architectural design of art schools and art school

studios (Renfro 2010, Madoff 2009, Jeremiah).

It is with this last point that we begin here to look at the design of art school studios. Afterwards, wewill look at their functions and uses in a bit more detail, seeing how they relate to post-studio

theories and practices.

Art school Spaces

When considering the progression of the design of British art schools from the 19th to the 20th

century, Jeremiah (1996) finds that 'art school buildings have a symbolic as well as practical

significance', and that the design of art schools and their studios is of an ideological importance as

well as of educational interest. He underpins the importance of the adaptability and flexibility of the

spaces, suggesting that in educational terms a consideration of the space that art students work in

bears much importance to the efficacy with which they manage to navigate the dichotomy of theory

and practice. This emerges when art education started to shift from being purely a matter of

vocational learning of crafts, and when it started to consider its role in broader commercial and

educational terms. Jeremiah (1996) finds that during the industrial revolution and just afterwards

this meant a focus on training designers, architects, and craftsmen. We could perhaps draw out from

the comment 'art school culture requires buildings that allow for individual responsibility and

expression in the management and organisation of working spaces' that it shares a similar sentiment

to the APG's 'context is half the work', as it highlights the importance of students understanding and

controlling their spatial/working context in the field of art (Jeremiah 1996).

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Renfro (2010, p.165) comments that

the art school for the 21stcentury should be a reflection of current art practices, including

acknowledgement of the art market, its physical image being formed by the dynamic between the

two.

However, considering the points that Jeremiah made, could it not be said that this was always the

case? Perhaps the issues at stake are where either the institutions try to guide art practices too much

without understanding them, or when art schools inherit older physical spaces and curricular

frameworks. Renfro outlines some choice design elements for a new art school, focusing on the

school as a place for networking, and the school as a site that questions 'permanence'.

By adopting permanent impermanence as a building strategy, the school can make its architectural

image based on action rather than stasis, ideas rather than form (Refnro 2010 p.175).

This appears to be highlighting the importance of a space that engenders an active questioning of

space. Moran (2009 p.34) considers that

any specificity in a design [of an art school] that means to give form to a particular teaching

philosophy is bound over time to fail, rendering a choke hold on change in place of being its

enabler.

The difficulty for art schools, perhaps, is that the architecture remains, even as new artistic and

teaching paradigms emerge possibly causing conflict. He highlights that

the challenge of designing art school environments has less to do with any existing need for iconic

structures than with instituting flexibly configured structures or platforms in which creative

production will take place. (Ibid)

Moran (2009 p.37) speculates that the emergence of the cubicle-based, individualised production

focused spaces in art school studios occurred in lieu of common art studios for training in

technique, which in turn atomized the public realm in the institutional space of the art school. We

can see how this might be the case in light of the pre-Modernist to Modernist art market.

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Madoff's summation on art school spaces is worth quoting in full:

The art schools space as a place of production has been altered throughout the twentieth century,

and now the twenty first, by its own inexorable waves of fascination that have incrementally

encompassed more attributes: crafts, technologies, attitudes toward the handmade, the conceptual,

and the outsourced; and the explorations of art and artists relations to the social spheres

ideological, political, and economic movements (Madoff, 2009 p.281).

Due to the fact that we are talking about the issues in the physical/architectural art school learning

environment, it would seem helpful to consider that environment more broadly. Boys (2011) finds

that

The aim of building design is still almost invariably seen as attempting to make a best match or

fit with the activities that it contains. This appears such obvious common sense that it is hardly ever

questioned. As we look at, and participate in, built space, we often note how it does not work;

that is, where it fails to perform appropriately in support of the things that we are doing or want to

do. But as soon as we begin to unpick the many, partial, complex and often contested processes

through which buildings and spaces achieved, adapted, removed or replaced, we begin to see that

designed space is much more ambiguous. It is not a fit between activities and material, spatial

and/or aesthetic arrangements; nor is it a direct, transparently obvious correlation between

function and form. It is much more about problematic compromises, collisions and the unexpected.

The ideas of both event-based design and non-congruence between design intention and its

interpretation/experience, try to capture some of this ambiguity and to admit to the impossibility of

architectural design even attempting a perfect fit with activities (Boys, 2011 p. 35).

The idea that a space can obviously be designed to meet the needs of the activities within is

contested here, and is somewhat contrasted with 'problematic compromises, collisions and the

unexpected'. Boys challenges the idea that we should be looking for how spaces don't work, and

instead view them as always complex and changing. She introduces the idea of 'event-based' design,

which is something that Duggan mentions when she theorizes that art students are begging to centre

their lives and learning around teaching events, and 'dropping in' to the studio (Duggan 2004 p.7).

This is also echoed by Renfro above when he spoke about an architecture that was based on action

rather than form. A question of flexibility comes up in Boys' work, which is a key word that is often

found in relation to the art studio: when we consider the potential array of practices, flexibility of

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space it required. But as Boys reminds us:

If flexibility is actually about enabling different modes of teaching and learning, then surely this is

an issue of changing educational methods rather than spaces? In fact, what is required is a better

understanding of the range of existing and potential teaching and learning modes in any particular

situation, as well as the particular spatial and architectural conditions which can support them.

(Boys, 2011 p. 19)

Indeed, it could be said that the CFAP placement scheme is not so much a change of space as it is a

change of curriculum. It just happens to alter the space that work is carried out in.

The art school studios uses and issues

Common problems with the studio in art education see the studio as obsolete, costly, over

idealized/romanticised, underused, in disrepair, short of space, and badly understood by other

disciplines (Boys 2009, Duggan 2004, Jeremiah 1996, Renfro 2010).

Common praises for the studio in art education see is as a great place for community, access to

resources, very flexible, important to personal and artistic formations of identity, relevant to

contemporary practices, and of historical importance in understanding art practices (Boys 2009,

Duggan 2004, Jeremiah 1996, Renfro 2010).

Renfro sums up situation pretty well, recognising that 'the romantic notion of the artist working in

rural isolation is still a dominant feature in art school facilities' (with older pedagogic forms valuing

isolation), but that at the same time is it common place for artists to use a variety of media and

approaches, including collaborating with people from various different fields. (Renfro, 2010 p.164).

In the field of art school studios, Duggan notes the basics of the studios most common uses: a place

where work is generated, reviewed, displayed and stored (Duggan 2004). She surveyed studio use

between different universities, asking tutors and students about the nature of how they used them.

Her summation of the current studio situation is worth quoting in full:

As institutions become increasingly aware of the need for ongoing evaluation of the academic and

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economic effectiveness of their facilities, the studio is coming under considerable pressure to prove

its value as a key resource. The problem is seen to be the resource-hungry nature of both studio

teaching methods (namely one-to-one tutorial and group reviews or crits) and the quantity of

space required(Duggan 2004 p.11)

She goes on to find that greater student mobility, accompanied by more complex juggling of both

student and institutional priorities, more concentrated teaching days, poor quality studio provision

and greater student reliance on technology, has resulted in the pattern of studio use shifting from

live-in to drop-in, and the nature of the studio identity being increasingly forged by events rather

than space.

Other key notions she highlights include concerns for territoriality, in which new students feel theneed to have a physical space in order to get their bearings and a sense of belonging and identity

(with upper year students focusing on greater mobility with their identity being achieved through

continuous connectivity and regular events); students working from home more, with technology

linking them into a community; importance for solitude, collaboration, and multiple working spaces

for student education (Duggan 2004 p.6-7).

The strange thing about Duggan's review of the use of the studio is that it doesn't reference historic

or artistic reasons for studio use: it focuses very much on how students use studios, and how they

feel about them, being concerned with learning without linking such learning to art theory

discourses. For example, issues of identity and site-lessness might not just be a matter of students

finding themselves at ease and working from home, but is instead itself a part of the art discourse.

As Kwon points out, the current trend for nomadic, international, site-less art practices are

supported by globalist capitalist tendencies, and may be uncritically submitted to in exchange for a

change in ones identity (and ones practice). However, she is quick to point out:

yet it is not a matter of choosing sides between models of nomadism and sedentriness, between

space and place, between digital interfaces and the handshake, between the right and wrong

places. Rather, we need to be able to think the range of these seeming contradictions and our

contradictory desires for them together, at once. (Kwon, 2002 p.8)

To Kwon, deciding to remain in one place, as a political stance against nomadism, only serves to

entrench the current (potentially problematic) nomadic stance. Her summation is that to experiment

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reflexively and critically with being in other places, artistically speaking, is to challenge the

transition to a new space, the new space itself, and the previous space. (Kwon 1997 P.9)

Summary

In the first chapter, we reviewed how the art studio progressed from a workshop to an isolated space

for modernist art production, and how this conception prevails today, and continues to play a role in

shaping artistic identities despite the fact that such a studio today operates in a different art

market. In the second chapter, we looked at issues of site specificity and artistic critiques of the

places of production. This was elicited in order to help us understand how such issues may affect a

post-studio type of art curriculum when related to the CFAP placement scheme. In the final chapterwe focused on the key issues surrounding the art school studio today, while looking at the role that

architecture played in the development of such spaces (and subsequently how they might contribute

to the development and logic of an art curriculum). With this in mind, we can begin to position the

CFAP placement scheme in this matrix, and hopefully begin to understand the development of the

students practices as a part of these histories. In the next section of this research, will we begin to

analyse the data in relation to the key topics and themes that have cropped up in this literature,

being able to ask questions of the studio in a post-studio art curriculum.

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Data

Introduction

This section shows the results of coding the interview data. It observes and annotates the most

common themes that occur within the interviews, presenting the students opinions on how they used

the studios before and during the placements, which issues and ideas concerned them, and how the

placement scheme affected their perceptions of a studio-based practice. It starts by outlining the

most common themes in a list of key phrases, and then it proceeds to go through each phrase,

analysing the data and referring it to the literature review. Quotes from the interviews are indented.

In order to help us make sense of the questions, it is probably useful to review the key focus of the

interviews:

1. To inquire into the use of the studio by students generally, and specifically in regards to the

CFAP studio both before and during the placement.

2. To understand the students attitudes towards the placement, and how it affected their use of

the studios/work and perceptions of the studios/work (if at all).

3. To help us answer: What do art students' experiences of a placement scheme ('making work

outside of the studio') tell us about the uses of the studio in art education?

Themes that emerged

1. Working from home.

2. Expectations of the placement.

3. The social element of the studio and the placement scheme.

4. Difference in work from studio-based to placement-based, and the individuality of

practices.

5. Working with a computer or laptop.

6. Concerns over assessment.

7. Artistic identity.

8. Audience.

9. Response to the lack of a studio.

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1. Working from home

The first interview question asked the students what their practices were like prior to the placement

scheme, and how they subsequently used the studios during the placement. By far the most common

theme that cropped up was how the students often preferred to use their homes as a studio (before

and during the placements), specifically as a place to make work in. The students work tended to be

described as either photographic or small and sculptural, with research and writing being the other

main type of work.

Student: Yeah, well, the past year, I've not really used it at all. I had a suitcase, in the

studio... where I sort of kept stuff. So, yeah I'd have like, stuff for the darkroom, because I've

used the darkroom a few times. But, I literally would have this suitcase, with some stuff init, um..and I just kind of been using my room at home...Which isn't ideal, because I've been

sorting stuff, and that..

Interviewer: If you could work anywhere in the world right now, where would you want to

work?

Student: I think, probably at home actually...yeah

Another student found that the scale of work was affected by their choice to work from home. They

also mentioned another key theme, which was the studio as a place of community, which we will

come to later:

Interviewer: What is your relationship to using the studio?

Student: On my foundation I used it all the time, but this year I haven't so much. I don'tknow if that's because.. I feel like bigger work (scale wise) belongs in the studio. I can make

dolls in my room at home. I see a benefit for the studio as a place of community, to talk to

people while your doing stuff, but I do that at home at the moment anyway.

A part-time student had a slightly different perspective on working from home. When asked how

the placement scheme had affected the students work, the student stated that working away from the

studio had no real impact, adding:

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Student: I never really make work in the studio, I'm only really part-time so everything I

need is at home. So if I wanted to make work in the studio, I'd have to lug quite a lot of stuff

in, and it is just not worth it really. I don't think you can beat working from home...I tried... I

rented a studio for part of a year, and one of the reasons I gave it up, partly money, but the

other reason was when I got there, I was on the computer too much doing research and I

thought, well I can do this at home. But it felt more like an office than a studio.

Interviewer: Do you think you were doing more work in your studio or more work in your

home? Even though you were doing the same thing?

Student: I was doing none at home, that was the only difference. When I went home I didn't

do anything, I don't think I even thought as much... where as now its all sort of blurred. It

was an experiment for me, that didn't really come off.

What's interesting here is that, despite the student working from home, the experience wasn't wholly

positive no work was done at home. The student was part-time, so there is a chance that the studio

at CFAP never had a strong social element to it (reinforced by the comment 'Well, it is hard for me

because I was never really part of it.' - the social group at the studio). Most students seemed to

enjoy the home comforts (the issue of feeling 'comfortable' is addressed below in part 5) and used

the home to think in and make artefacts in.

Interviewer: How would you normally make work? Do you use a studio, do you work from

home?

Student: Because this year we were given limited studio space, it felt like we were not given

a space, so I worked at home primarily. Say I needed to use the studios for say sculpture, I

would, but primarily its at home - my dad has a work shop, so I tend to make there.

It would seem to be a matter of practicality (comfort, space), but when asked to work in a variety of

transient settings (on a placement, in a caf, etc) all the students adapted accordingly (working from

laptops, increased socializing). This last quote is interesting as it points to the fact that each students

practice is very mutable to begin with; this is something we will come back to through another

theme. Overall the issue of the home was a surprise for the research, as it presented a third space for

making, which influenced how the students used the studios and the placement scheme. Effectively,

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they didn't seem to require the studio as a place for producing small to medium sized artefacts.

2. Expectations of the placement

Many students seemed to see their placement as an opportunity to acquire knowledge, contacts, or

experiences. For example:

Interviewer: Has this been a positive experience for you?

Student: Effectively, yeah, and I know Ive got contacts and things, and should I need to do

more research the people can help me.

Later, when a student was asked about what they wanted to do on their placement (at a maths

department):

Student: I think I wanted to learn about what they were learning about, rather than

actually do something at the place

And when another student was asked about how they explained to their host why they were on a

placement:

Student: When I first went into the meeting obviously they were like who is this

young girl and what is she doing? umm, so I sort of, I was introduced as an artist, and then

I took about 5-10 minutes to explain exactly why I was there, umm, and that I was more

there to observe, and that if any work came out of it that would be great, and if it didn't so-

so, but that it was more the experience of what happened.

It's worth going through these ideas individually, but they are mentioned together because they

seem to represent a specific attitude towards the idea of a placement that the student would be

receiving something as opposed to just making work. Viewing the placement as a place to acquire

knowledge, for example, could be viewed cynically as it would appear to position the student as

someone who simply takes from another community, echoing the 'colonial approach' that was a

concern of the tutor.

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Tutor: The word residency has colonial roots the first residency that I participated in was

in 1999, and I remember researching the word residency and one of its meanings was 'the

home of an ambassador in a foreign country'. So I hope I've been sensitive to that, and I

think in my own experience, as an artist doing residencies, it has made me go perhaps too far

the other way, and Ive always been too concerned with being very aware of and sensitive to

the context I find myself in, rather than wishing to impose my own world view upon this

other setting which is not my own I am a guest.

This is different from the idea of students learning with communities, as in this case the students

tended to phrase their approach as a personal acquisition of knowledge that seemed unobtainable

elsewhere. However, that's not to say that the striving for knowledge doesn't contain elements of

wanting to understand a community. Importantly, another factor to consider here is that many of theplacements were based within university departments so perhaps the learning ethic is carried over

as an assumption. Expanding on this, its worth considering whether such assumptions would be

continued after the students have left university. The Artists Placement Group (Eleey 2007) strived

for their artists to have a positive effect on businesses and corporations, but could it be that a

learner-centered studio environment doesn't facilitate such an approach as effectively? The literature

suggests that the romantic ideal of the lonely artist, while long since disputed, is still a common

image in students minds (Jones 2010 p.296).

To see the placement as a place to acquire contacts and network for further work was also a

common idea, and this is something that comes up in the literature with Relyea (2009 p.345), in

which the placement in this sense might be synonymous with a residency arrangement, for artists to

create networks and accrue contacts to aid the construction of future work. Seeing the placement as

a chance to gain experience (or to 'have' experiences) was a very common theme for the students,

and it seemed particularly prominent in students who had a lesser formed idea as to what they

wanted to get from the placements.

In understanding the students attitude towards the placement, it may help us theorize what they

value or prioritize when thinking about work, which in turn could help us know what their needs

might be, whether that would be a studio or something else. In this case, we could ask a few

questions: does the studio environment help provide contacts, aid in learning from different fields,

and provide new experiences? Or more crucially, if students weren't expecting to make work on the

placements, then surely they wouldn't have needed the studio, or a working space of any kind.

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3. The social element of the studio and the placement scheme.

masters research paper final leo powell

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