We have received the following suggestion for a post. It shows how many ALs are both creative, committed, and engaged in the generous way that they are willing to adapt their art practices to their teaching roles. However it also clearly illuminates the rapid changes and economic pressures placed upon many ALs who are trying their best to cope with new directives from managers which leave ALs -who only a few years ago had greater autonomy and were awarded greater trust to evolve and monitor their own roles and standards - increasingly forced to adapt to remotely conceived ideals which can sometimes overlook hard-won, on-the-ground expertise -otherwise known as 'mutual respect'.
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Minicure
–small makeover, short therapy or quick curation.
Definition and Derivation:
Min・I [min-ee] –adjective
anything of a small, reduced, or miniature size. min・I [min-ee]
Cure [kyoor] noun
a means of healing or restoring to health; remedy.
ALSO ALLUDING TO:
cu・rate [n. kyoor-it; v. kyoo-reyt, kyoor-eyt] , verb
to serve as curator for: to curate an art exhibition.
man・i・cure
[man-i-kyoor] –noun
a cosmetic treatment of the hands and fingernails, including trimming and polishing of the nails and removing cuticles.
TEACHING,SCULPTURE and TIME
This is a document produced in response to a request by my Subject Leader to derive a new or potential mode of studio teaching. It is authored by an Associate Lecturer in consultation with my mangers and colleagues and those responsible for monitoring excellence and innovation in teaching strategies.
My studio teaching is based on 7 years experience of working through pieces and projects with students from beginning to end, from ‘scratch’ to well-made and appropriately displayed object/event/installation. Usually this was over a 7-10 week period, and I worked through all three levels from day one to graduation.
The qualitative and quantitative time of art and its education has always been a concern of mine. My main interest remains a dialogue between sculpture, photography, event, and writing. Furthermore, when I graduated as a fine artist I considered undertaking an MA in fine art but was afraid the atmosphere of the best known courses would be too rushed, crowded and competitive for the questions that I felt needed to work through, for and by myself concerning what art and an artist might be, what kind of artist I myself might be etc. And so, instead of a 2 year MA my post-grad fine art education took place during 7 years (equivalent to a practice-based PhD) of living and working, making, thinking, writing and reflecting, living like a hermit in my own home studio, away from the distractions of haste, fashion and powerful personalities that might sway me from or obscure the kind of subtle yet profound discoveries that I believe only art can provide.
Though I have exhibited regularly my broad experiments and commitments mean that I am sometimes mistaken for a writer/tutor/ theorist, I am in fact an artist carving out a unique form of identity and practice for myself while exploring the possibilities of art in the broadest sense. Having completed my Phd studies -which again discussed the object and self in time using a History if Ideas- and having also explored many possibilities and having confronted some of the limitations of art teaching and art writing, I now intend to focus increasingly on making and exhibiting work which is being turned in a more political direction towards investigation of the value of the self and object in relation to the economics of time.
TEACHING
I am now very experienced in every aspect of Sculpture teaching, I have a PhD, PGCERT, and have conducted tutorials, seminars, lectures, event-based and experimental teaching modes, curated student exhibitions, held crits, organised trips and managed students through a curriculum alerting them to assessment points, assessment criteria and learning outcomes. I have also worked as an art-writing specialist, giving students confidence in every aspect of the demands of the written components of both academic and professional life, from Level One to final dissertation, from personal statement to reviews and creative writing. I have also always been interested in theories of teaching, in terms of both traditions and innovations and have spent much time in dialogue with colleagues across the university in recent years about the possibilities of the future art school and its changing model.
THE CHALLENGE
Having recently lost my established studio teaching duties I no longer have the opportunity to utilise my established modes of studio teaching, however, I have recently been given several afternoon slots on which to conduct brief ‘group work’ sessions. Whether these can be linked with any consistency or will remain isolated events remains to be seen but it is my intention here to look at these changes positively and creatively, hopefully with the support of colleagues, managers, and those monitoring standards and innovations in teaching, to see if I can use them as an opportunity to contribute an innovative teaching model to a fast-changing arts education milieu, while linking them to my own practice and research.
I have much experience in innovating teaching experiences creatively in collaboration with small and large groups of students, but no experience in contributing to studio practice in such a brief way (one-off, one afternoon sessions) other than as a visiting tutorials tutor in colleges where the students, tutors and departmental ethos were alien to me and where, on those occasions, I found any possibility of making a significant contribution very unlikely and my time and that of the students almost wasted.
For these proposed afternoon sessions ‘sign-ups’ and ‘one-to-one tutorials’ and 'Crits' (with all of which I DO have much very positive experience) are disallowed (why, I haven't been told), and so I have considered this new proposition as a challenge to my creativity and my broad experience as a tutor.
THE PROPOSAL
I have the idea ‘Minicure’ whose etymology I have given above and who’s function I will explain below.
To avoid becoming a ‘sign-up’ or ‘one-to-one’ tutorial the session must be themed and prescribed.
'Minicures' must be small groups of students, from perhaps any year of the course, who convene for an afternoon with me (and sometimes another tutor) to share a collective concern re practice, or to discuss a theme. But this must be directly related to practice and in relation to a projects or objects provided as examples of students work and work of other artists (current or historic).
These particular concerns need to be carefully chosen and announced in advance.
The 'Minicure' might take the form of a ‘quick curation’ i.e. temporarily linking a series of works together around a single process, concept, or area of research.
The 'Minicure' can be a ‘short therapy’ in which students with a particular difficulty can convene and work through a problem with the help of a tutor, with the aim of turning an obstacle into a creative solution and affirmation.
The ‘Minicure’ can be a ‘small makeover’ in which students call upon their peers to take interest in a project that may be having difficulty in finding its way.
The ‘Minicure’ could take place in the studio, in a booked room or at an agreed meeting place somewhere in the city –if and as appropriate.
The aim of the 'Minicure' is to provide an alternative teaching experience to regular contact with a group leader or year leader, as well as providing something other than the experience of a crit, seminar, lecture or tutorial.
N.B. As the name suggests, a 'Minicure' is no panacea.
The outcome of the 'Minicure' is intended to be an insight into practice and collective communication other than can be obtained by any of the traditional and established means referred to above.
Ideally, or eventually (if successful) students would evolve their own titles for these sessions arising from their own genuine needs, however, here are some possible themes for Minicures:
Personal Impersonality
Strategies of Sentiment
Deployment on Display
‘Stockholder Stinks’
Chromophobia & Monochromophobia
Gulliver’s Travels V Robinson Crusoe
Singularity of Repetition
Over-Familiar Uncanny
Airy Fairy
Surface in Depth
Offsite Insights
Carving for Relief
Community of Isolation
Sounds Silent
Casting Copies
Pathetic Pride
Strength in Density
FINALLY
Clearly, as a pedagogical experiment this idea relies upon support and good will of students and departmental colleagues. Innovations like this, with which students will not be familiar and may not readily understand are of course more vulnerable or fragile that long-established and recognisable modes of teaching which are being used by other members of staff. As with many of my recently transformed duties, no matter how conscientious or inspired I might be in their design and delivery, they cannot succeed with out the tacit and explicit support of my department and colleagues.
END
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