We are The National Association for Fine Art Education, the Subject Association for Fine Art education in the UK. We advocate the interests, promotion and cultural relevance of Fine Art education at Foundation, BA, MA and PhD levels.

We are The National Association for Fine Art Education, the Subject Association for Fine Art education in the UK. We advocate the interests, promotion and cultural relevance of Fine Art education at Foundation, BA, MA and PhD levels.

Annual Conference

The Art of Resistance

National Association for Fine Art Education, Annual Conference @ UCA Canterbury, Kent.

10:00-16:00 - Wednesday September 4th, 2024

The National Association for Fine Art Education invites you to our annual conference on The Art of Resistance. Tickets to the conference are free with membership.

The Art School is changing, has changed and will continue to change. The art school has an ability to be agile in reproducing itself in an expanding range of platforms, amongst social and political contexts and against sector metrics that challenge us to work in different ways. Within the University sector, the fabric of an Art School takes different forms, but the concept and attitude of the original ‘Art School’ still prevails. Meanwhile, instances of self-organisation and collective action, independent spaces for art making and exchange, and educational activism, are becoming an urgent necessity for enabling cultural inclusion. Increasingly, there are multiple cross-overs and prospects for local partnerships that are evolutionary and dynamic. There are numerous ways in which we have all learnt and are learning to make things happen in delivering a student experience which is inclusive through varied curriculums which are expansive and challenge the parameters of what we do. 

There are characteristics present and common to each Art School scenario: 
-    Precarity, in the sense of vulnerability as we are all affected by factors beyond the immediate community of practice (and by an openly hostile political agenda)
-    Defiant passion, a mission and ambition that is lived by people who won’t be deterred from what they understand to be critically important and valuable
-    Innovation and creative ways of operating within structures and systems, often taking the form of alternative approaches


In the current climate, it would be tempting to focus our concerns onto the way that marketisation and the application of economic norms have effectively diminished the reliability of resourcing and the richness of the social offer at the heart of art education. However, in the final analysis, the true core of everything are the people who drive, inspire, make and enable. 

-    Artist activists and artists who teach,
-    Educational activists and teachers who create,
-    Maker activists and technical experts who share,
-    Social activists and organisers who produce collective action.


Typically, such people are those who can’t ‘put it down’, who can find ways of adapting and ‘working with’, who can look forward, who carve out opportunities, who can challenge boundaries, who seek political agency for those they don’t know, and who find strength in the cultural richness that we can and should disseminate. 

Our gathering at Canterbury, Kent will focus on innovative, disruptive and/ or alternative ecologies of practice that exist within and beyond the Art School. This year’s conference provides an opportunity to bridge initiatives and connect experiences, particularly those which point to visions for the future, resilience and resistance and positive action. Each in our community has a multitude of positive anecdotes, examples, and successes; stories that aren’t frequently told or, more likely, become obscured by the intensifying struggle to defend access to cultural and creative means. 

Once again, the background to this conference are the urgencies and crisis’s that continue to challenge and destabilise UK post-statutory education in Fine Art:

‘Ministers will cut funding for performing and creative arts courses at English universities next year, ………….  .’ 
Guardian report, 03 May, 2024

‘……44 institutions currently affected by redundancies. Stated job losses are around a thousand but many more are concealed behind non-specific announcements of “voluntary severance schemes.” ’
World Socialist Web Site, 02 April, 2024

However, in preparing for a future alternative, it is important to reflect on and take strength from what members across our community are already achieving with their students and learners. At our 2024 conference, and as a network, we are primarily interested in practice and projects; in how people are producing and how educators and fine art practitioners are responding to challenge.

To join NAFAE please visit https://www.nafae.org.uk/members

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Art of Resistance

National Association for Fine Art Education, Annual Conference @ UCA Canterbury, Kent.

Wednesday September 4th, 2024

Deadline: Monday 24 June, 2024.
Confirmation: Monday 8 July, 2024.


The Art School is changing, has changed and will continue to change. The art school has an ability to be agile in reproducing itself in an expanding range of platforms, amongst social and political contexts and against sector metrics that challenge us to work in different ways. Within the University sector, the fabric of an Art School takes different forms, but the concept and attitude of the original ‘Art School’ still prevails. Meanwhile, instances of self-organisation and collective action, independent spaces for art making and exchange, and educational activism, are becoming an urgent necessity for enabling cultural inclusion. Increasingly, there are multiple cross-overs and prospects for local partnerships that are evolutionary and dynamic. There are numerous ways in which we have all learnt and are learning to make things happen in delivering a student experience which is inclusive through varied curriculums which are expansive and challenge the parameters of what we do. 

There are characteristics present and common to each Art School scenario: 
-    Precarity, in the sense of vulnerability as we are all affected by factors beyond the immediate community of practice (and by an openly hostile political agenda)
-    Defiant passion, a mission and ambition that is lived by people who won’t be deterred from what they understand to be critically important and valuable
-    Innovation and creative ways of operating within structures and systems, often taking the form of alternative approaches


In the current climate, it would be tempting to focus our concerns onto the way that marketisation and the application of economic norms have effectively diminished the reliability of resourcing and the richness of the social offer at the heart of art education. However, in the final analysis, the true core of everything are the people who drive, inspire, make and enable. 

-    Artist activists and artists who teach,
-    Educational activists and teachers who create,
-    Maker activists and technical experts who share,
-    Social activists and organisers who produce collective action.


Typically, such people are those who can’t ‘put it down’, who can find ways of adapting and ‘working with’, who can look forward, who carve out opportunities, who can challenge boundaries, who seek political agency for those they don’t know, and who find strength in the cultural richness that we can and should disseminate. 

Our gathering at Canterbury, Kent will focus on innovative, disruptive and/ or alternative ecologies of practice that exist within and beyond the Art School. This year’s conference provides an opportunity to bridge initiatives and connect experiences, particularly those which point to visions for the future, resilience and resistance and positive action. Each in our community has a multitude of positive anecdotes, examples, and successes; stories that aren’t frequently told or, more likely, become obscured by the intensifying struggle to defend access to cultural and creative means. 

Once again, the background to this conference are the urgencies and crisis’s that continue to challenge and destabilise UK post-statutory education in Fine Art:

‘Ministers will cut funding for performing and creative arts courses at English universities next year, ………….  .’ 
Guardian report, 03 May, 2024

‘……44 institutions currently affected by redundancies. Stated job losses are around a thousand but many more are concealed behind non-specific announcements of “voluntary severance schemes.” ’
World Socialist Web Site, 02 April, 2024

However, in preparing for a future alternative, it is important to reflect on and take strength from what members across our community are already achieving with their students and learners. At our 2024 conference, and as a network, we are primarily interested in practice and projects; in how people are producing and how educators and fine art practitioners are responding to challenge.
Proposals are invited for presentations, papers or provocations that respond to the broad theme of ‘The Art of Resistance’. The four key areas this theme aims to address are as follows (we are, however, open to other suggestions and responses not covered here):

  • Provocations for the ‘Art School of the 22nd Century’: Art School as attitude.

  • Art education and activism: Communities of Practice and collective agency; the value of self-organisation, mutual empowerment, friendship and solidarity.

  • Resistance as creative change: Disruption and radical practice; Hope labour, cultural activism and social contribution.

  • Practice exchange: The diversity of artist educator’s tacit intelligences, nurtured and stored in acts of creative making, shared as sources of wisdom and knowing.

Proposals should be no more than 500 words and should include your name, email address and organisation or situation, along with the title of the proposed presentation, paper or provocation. All proposals will be peer reviewed. 

Proposals should be submitted to: admin@nafae.org.uk no later than Monday 24th June 2024.
Response to abstracts will be provided by 8th July.

To join NAFAE please visit https://www.nafae.org.uk/members

Essential not Optional: Celebrating the Creative Arts in Higher Education

Date: 26-27 June 2024 / Location: Lincoln Arts Centre, University of Lincoln

Sign up here: https://lincolnartscentre.co.uk/event/essential-not-optional/?

Essential not Optional: Celebrating the Creative Arts in Higher Education is an in-person conference that brings together members from DanceHE, DramaHE, MusicHE, and NAFAE for a series of interdisciplinary panels, debates, and keynotes. This conference is not merely a convergence of disciplines; it's a celebration of the essential role played by Drama, Music, Dance, and Art in higher education. This two-day conference is structured into four strands - ‘CREATIVE INDUSTRIES?,’ ‘COLLABORATION,’ ‘INCLUSIVITY’ and ‘HEALTH AND WELLBEING’ - that each act as provocations for what the creative arts do and can offer in the current Higher Education landscape.

Essential not Optional explores the synergies that arise and collective influence we might wield when these four disciplines come together. This unique gathering provides a platform to explore our collaborative potential, shared ethos, and the impact that Drama, Music, Dance, and Art has on the academic landscape of our institutions and the sector as a whole. The conference offers a rare opportunity to explore how these disciplines can work together to enhance and reinforce the position and influence of the creative arts. We hope that this collaborative conference will help us to foster a more resilient, cohesive, and interconnected network, not only between disciplines but with partners in compulsory education, community arts, industry and policy. By sharing insights, methodologies, and best practices from across our memberships, we can cross-pollinate ideas to shape the practices, policies, and cultures of learning that define our collective educational environments in the present and the future.

The conference is free to members of DanceHE, DramaHE, MusicHE, and NAFAE, to become a member please sign up via the appropriate association's website. Refreshments and lunch are provided.

https://www.dancehe.org/become-a-member

https://dramahe.ac.uk/members/

Contact: admin@musiche.ac.uk

https://www.nafae.org.uk/members

Secretary Report

Annual General Meeting 26th April 2024

2 Camels

I am calling this ‘report’ something like ‘between the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back and the story of the weeping camel’.

This is my way of trying to think where we are between ‘bordering on despair’ and ‘never losing hope’.

The current landscape for art and design education seems to many of us perhaps to be caught in a bit of a seismic shift even since a number of us met in the conference at The School of Mosaic in north west London in 15th September 2023…”Revisiting the Fine Art Graduate”.

We may not have imagined then the extent to which Universities in particular across the sector would have to go into various forms of ‘restructure’ mode. This may or may not be variously impacting upon Art and Design but ‘straws breaking backs’ may be where there has had to be a significant overhaul of academic staffing, where Schools may be asked to re-align differently within, or combine with other Schools and overhaul courses, so as to reduce costs…

But………..now let me talk about the story of the ‘weeping camel’…a beautiful lyrical film about a Mongolian nomadic tribe in the Gobi desert…one of their camel’s gives birth to a calf , a rare white calf, that she then seems to reject…the nomad family and especially the young boy as I recall is doing all he can to get the mother to accept the calf and give it succour…first the tribe call in the ‘lama’-a Buddhist monk offering spiritual guidance …but...no matter how much chanting …it seems not to work…

But then later…a violin playing traveller appears…( a particular type of Mongolian violin called the morin khuur or ‘horsehead fiddle’)…the wonderful sounds of this violin fill the sky…the mother of the boy in the tribe starts to share in the rhythm and the tone of the violin’s sound…and…after a while…

The mother camel unbelievably starts to weep…and upon weeping turns to her calf and gives it succour…

See….art saves and finds life…art saves art…and gives meaning to work…so we must not give up…and we didn’t give up at the School of Mosaic.

That conference in a wonderful and distinctive local setting produced a conference that was global in its reach. Its ideas were practical, aspirational and inspirational. What struck me about that conference was the strong sense we gave to the variety of exciting and innovative and unconventional ways in which art answers to all the call for ‘employability’ but also called back to all that we had said about ways of thinking ‘community’ in Birmingham the year before …and it was about art and life in the call for us to remember Joe Woodhouse and Foundation Press and the plan for the event at Newcastle Contemporary Art next year…the conference was all about what art Gives…and does not ‘take away’…

This was also the introduction to and opportunity for some of us coming to together in the webinar/conversation about the politics of ‘alternative art education’ in support of Richard Hudson- Miles and Jackie Goodman’s book…what a great happening that was…who knew we would generate such thoughtful and provoking ideas.

Many of us may be thinking more and more about our links and togetherness with all forms of art education and furthering these to inform us ‘beyond’ the contexts of Higher Education…this I hope give us strength to face the coming challenges and NAFAE is very valuable indeed, especially I think, in terms of its openness and the welcome given to such a wide reaching community….

We may feel like weeping but we still nourish each other.

To be scholarly, I end with a quote from a book by Hannah Proctor*…’ it is possible to mourn and organise at once, and do both without compromise…

So yes, let’s keep organising around the positivity of art and its spaces and places for cultural sustainability and nourishment…

*Proctor H (2024) ‘Burnout-the emotional experience of political defeat’…London Verso Books 2024

Jenny Walden Secretary NAFAE

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