New research just published by a-n reveals sharpened thinking around the employability of graduates of visual and applied arts BA courses. Commissioned by a-n from Sarah Rowles, Director, Q-Art, The Lay of the Land: current approaches to professional practice in visual and applied arts BA courses, sampled the professional practice opportunities on offer through visits and interviews with tutors, advisers and students from 25 of the UK’s 149 fine and applied arts courses.
The report shows how increases in student fees and the requirement to make visible levels of employability on graduation have affected BA courses. As well as attracting potential students, universities are increasingly aware of the need to reassure the parents of students and potential employers of the value of a visual arts degree.
The new report highlights sophisticated examples of ‘personal and professional development’ – the ways students get opportunities to reflect upon skills gained at each stage in the curriculum. It also demonstrates the challenges and the contrasts in the views and expectations of what should be provided and how.
Concepts of employability
Increasingly, personal and professional development is ‘embedded’ across the life of a degree course. It’s more engaging for the students because it contextualises practice, and can be delivered through their participation in real-life projects and placements, such as with local galleries, the Cultural Olympiad and community programmes.
Stand-alone ‘named’ topics, such as drafting a career plan or client research, can be viewed by students as uninteresting or irrelevant. It’s perhaps because of this that not all professional practice is assessed. This is more the case in fine art, where the expectation of having to be ‘business like’ can be a unattractive.
Tutors may also resent the requirement for such personal and professional development. As one put it in the report: “The university dictates that this features prominently in the curriculum, yet many staff are not interested in delivering it.”
Many tutors see themselves first and foremost as artists, there to teach the students about making art with reference to a specific contemporary art industry they know about and operate in. Although many visual arts students may ultimately go on to become art therapists, arts administrators, curators or teachers, these career options tend not to be widely acknowledged or explored by tutors during their courses.
Recognising such barriers, Glasgow School of Art and Buckinghamshire New University have been partnering on research to develop a more sympathetic interpretation of traditional concepts of employability. This will recognise the reality of artists’ portfolio careers and the range of employment routes in the visual arts.
Working hard to retain graduates
Sarah Rowles’ study shows that universities are having to work harder than ever to retain students after graduation, as they know that it’s having a healthy arts ecology that sustains the courses and drives new applicants to their doors each year. In England at least, getting to London continues to be the Holy Grail for some, as one student comments: “If you wanted to start an artist-run space, you wouldn’t do here. Despite all of the creative people here, everyone runs to London as soon as they graduate.”
Juan Cruz, Director of Liverpool John Moores University, cites Liverpool’s City of Culture status in 2008 as having an impact on student retention: “What we’ve tried to do in the last four years is to say ‘Look, this is an amazing city with amazing opportunities for artists and a fantastic place for culture’, and we’ve tried to kind of give ourselves back to the city and really make sure we’re addressing and engaging with the city; contributing towards turning the city into a place where artists might really think it’s viable, interesting and possible to pursue their ambitions and careers.”
Student choices also reflect wider ambitions, as Puy Soden, a 2011 graduate from the University of Huddersfield, revealed when interviewed for a-n. She explained that she chose the Contemporary Arts course at Huddersfield because of its international outlook and exchange programme with South Korea: “In Huddersfield, there seemed to be a lot less talking and a lot more doing than in London. I needed a course embedded in making and realising ideas through processes of creating something.”
Expanding networks provide role models
The Lay of the Land highlights how the expanding network of artists’ initiatives are providing local role models for students. As Maxa Zoller, professional practice course leader, Goldsmiths College, University of London, commented: “The financial melt down and global protest movement have created an energy. There are more artist-run and self-organised networks emerging now. There is ‘strategic optimism’ – being made to feel disempowered creates movement. I now have a huge number of artist-run and alternative models that I can show rather than the two or three I had previously.”
Among new models of graduate enterprise is DIY art school – an initiative created last year by graduates from MMU’s Interactive Arts course, which encourages ‘individual, flexible, employable graduates, capable of adapting to a changing world’. As DIYer Marcelle Holt says: “We’re creating our own peer-to-peer network, keeping ourselves and our confidence going.” It’s more like the fourth year of art school.
Discussion around how art students prepare for life in the real world is nothing new. Commenting in a-n Magazine in 2001, a Goldsmiths student felt that those serious about art as a career “need to choose a course that teaches the business side as well”. But research then – and now – indicates that not all students (or teaching staff) want to think so early on about operating in such a practical way.
However, while the UK’s economy continues to struggle, there are likely to be higher expectations from students (and parents) of what they will gain from art education. Just as importantly, the ability of students to demonstrate how their degree has led to some kind of employment will increasingly have a role in ensuring the survival of these courses.
More on a-n.co.uk:
The Lay of the Land: current approaches to professional practice in visual and applied arts BA courses – one of a growing portfolio of visual arts research papers and reports. Login for members or buy a trial subscription Join
Transition and Progression in Fine Art Education and Research – report from 2009 PARADOX conference, Palermo, Italy.
Where the education takes place – Sarah Rowles’ article examining how conversation and discussion can be considered an education in contemporary art.
AIR calls for art education to be accessible to all – campaign against introduction of higher course fees.
Alternative art schools – research into the context of contemporary artworld preoccupations and cultural movements.
