Drop in and join our temporary art school in Tate Exchange. All new students are welcome to enrol. There is to be no selection or interview process, simply a requirement that you commit to action.
The art school is created by students, staff and alumni of Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. It explores what the future of arts education in the UK might look like. Drop in to access timetables, workshops, seminars, studio-making and lectures in a school designed, built and run in public view – but where the standard orthodoxies have been questioned and upturned.
While this cacophony of creativity may offer a utopian ambition for arts education, there is a pressing point at its heart. We are concerned that in the current economic and political climate there is a systematic assault on arts education in the UK.
Project background and context
Art is increasingly isolated in the school timetable. Creativity is dismissed as peripheral and not included in the proposed Ebacc with preference given to the STEM subjects of science, technology, maths and engineering. Indeed, as pupils feel pressure to study Ebacc subjects we are seeing fewer choosing to study the arts. Outside of school, cuts to local funding puts galleries’ educational and outreach programmes at risk and raises the future possibility of an end to free entry.
It is in this cultural climate that we want to place Art School in the museum to examine it. In recreating and reconsidering an art school at Tate we want to think about what forces are currently threatening arts education and what resistance we can offer.
This event is programmed by Central Saint Martins, a Tate Exchange Associate.
About Central Saint Martins
Central Saint Martins is an arts and design college and part of University of the Arts London. The College’s alumni include artists and designers who have challenged and shaped the world around us.
