ART AND SOCIAL CONTEXT contextual art practice in education » David Harding

DAVID HARDING

David Harding

PAGES
ART AND SOCIAL CONTEXT contextual art a INTRODUCTION

practice in education A SEA WITHOUT BOATS* a visit to Havana

in 2005

ART AND SOCIAL CONTEXT contextual art

practice in education
This article was written by my good friend Chris Crickmay with whom I worked
CREACITE – Environmental Art students
on the ‘Art and Social Context course at Dartington College of Arts (1978 – 85).
make and exhibit work in the city of Tours,
It was published in the ‘Journal of Visual Art Practice’ (the Journal of the France
National Association for Fine Art Education) Vol 2 No 3. Editor, Iain Biggs, in
CULTURAL DEMOCRACY – CRAIGMILLAR
2003. STYLE. 30 years of the arts in an Edinburgh
housing esate
So although not written by me I include it here, with permission from the author, DR. ATL’S ‘OLINKA’. Notes towards a film –
for its relevance to my interests and, of course, my involvement in this 2012

particular history. FIVE-YEAR DRIVE-BY Douglas Gordon in 29

Palms.
“Art and Social Context”, its Background, Inception and Development. Chris GLENROTHES TOWN ARTIST 1968-78.*
Crickmay part of an unpublished memoir

JOHN LATHAM – A eulogy at his funeral*

Having been one of the writers of the Open University’s course, Art and
MACLOVIO ROJAS. social sculpture in
Environment, in the mid 1970s, Chris Crickmay went on to lead the team that Tijuana
developed the degree in ‘Art and Social Context’ at Dartington College of Arts in
MEANWHILE ARTIST. recalling the work of
Devon, between 1978 and 1991 (the degree itself was established in 1986). Jamie McCullough
Following the announcement of impending closure of the course he was then MEMORIES AND VAGARIES. the
instrumental in transferring it to Bristol Polytechnic (soon to become the development of social art practices in
University of the West of England) starting there in 1992. At this point he Scotland from the 60s to the 90s

handed over leadership of the revived course to Sally Morgan and became a part MULTI-STORY. art and asylum seekers in
Glasgow
time member of her team. Sally Morgan continued to develop the undergraduate
course and subsequently established an MA and a research centre in the same PASSAGES – Walter Benjamin, a suicide, a
monument, a film
field. A year ago the team that had taken the course forward at Bristol
disbanded leaving others to take over. Here, Chris Crickmay looks back over PRAKTIKA – a critical workshop for artists in
socially engaged art practice
almost 25 years of ‘contextualised art’ in education and what it stood for.
PUBLIC ART – CONTENTIOUS TERM AND
CONTESTED PRACTICE
The cultural climate of the late 1970s
Every good educational idea has its moment in history – a time when it has PUBLIC ART IN THE BRITISH NEW TOWNS

currency and relevance, when the tide of events in the culture is flowing in its PUBLIC ART INDEX. an annotated
bibliography
favour. The course described in this article was rooted in a general climate of
cultural ferment that had continued from the late 1960s into the early 80s. THE SCOTIA NOSTRA. socialisation among
Glasgow artists
Around the time the course began (1977), there had been a growing sense of crisis
nationally, both in the purpose of art and design education and, more broadly, in VENICE VERNISSAGE – 2003.* a visit to the
biennale
the role of the arts in society. In answer to this sense of a crisis, there were also
WHO TOOK THE (HE)ART OUT OF THE
emerging a number of new and exciting forms of art practice, new ways of
ART SCHOOLS?*
thinking about the role of the artist and new forms of criticism. ‘Community arts’
WORK AS IF YOU LIVE IN THE EARLY
and ‘public art’ had developed from the late 60s onwards, seeking new venues and
DAYS OF A BETTER SOCIETY’ collaborations

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new levels of participation in art; in the spirit of this, Joseph Beuys had made his between artists and young people.
famous pronouncement “everyone an artist” – and had led the way for many
European artists in terms of social and political engagement (a major seminar at META
Kassel in June-October 1977 drew together politically active artists from all over
Log in
Europe). Feminist art had gathered momentum, with pioneers like Judy Chicago
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influencing a whole generation of women artists in Britain and America. Her
collaborative feminist work, The Dinner Party, was created in the mid 70s. A bit Comments RSS

earlier, John Berger had delivered his famous, Ways of Seeing, broadcasts on BBC WordPress.org

TV (the book of the programmes was published in 1972). A string of exhibitions in

major public galleries had adopted social themes (1). Several art critics and writers
including Lucy Lippard, Caroline Tisdall, Paul Overy and Ian Nairn, were
promoting and reviewing socially conscious art. New movements in conceptual
art, performance art, installation and land art, were deliberately subverting the
concept of art as commodity. Numerous British artists, such as Conrad Atkinson,
Margaret Harrison, Peter Dunn, Lorraine Leeson and Stephen Willets, were
reflecting social concerns in their work that had not hitherto appeared in art
galleries. It was symptomatic of the times that Suzi Gablik’s book, Has Modernism
Failed?, appeared in 1984 and, of course, post-modernist theory was soon to take
hold in art colleges up and down the country recognising a sea-change in the arts
and culture of the late 20C. But the account which follows is not about this time of
ferment. Rather, it tells the tale of one small (but persistent) course – how it was
conceived and developed in response to these larger changes (2).

The Dartington background The story of the arts at Dartington had already
been through many chapters by the time this account of the course Art and Social
Context begins. Dartington’s original involvement in the arts came from the
interests of Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, a visionary couple, who established
Dartington as ‘an experiment in rural reconstruction’ in 1925. This involved the
revival of rural industries and farms, and the creation of a progressive school, and
other enterprises, all inspired by the Indian philosopher and poet, Rabindranath
Tagore (himself a founder of a university committed to its social context). In
addition to being enthusiasts and patrons of art, music, dance and drama, the
Elmhirsts “believed profoundly in arts education and the involvement of
amateurs” (Cox, 2000 – see note 4). The college was a much later addition to this
project, growing from an arts centre to eventually offer fully fledged degree
courses in art, dance/ drama, and music. (3)

The original Dip HE and its development

A two year Dip HE course in, Art and Design in Social Contexts, was validated in
1977. It was conceived by Paul Oliver (then Head of Department) with his team of
staff, most of whom had trained at Corsham in art education. The innovative idea
of the course was to produce a generalist artist-designer, capable of responding to
the unpredictable creative challenges that arise in a community setting. Key ideas
in the new course included: the importance of process over product; the value of
group work; the development of environmental and ecological awareness; the use
of live community projects; and the introduction of semiotics and certain aspects
of anthropology as instruments for understanding contemporary art and image
making. (4)

David Harding and I arrived a year later in September 1978. With the other staff,

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we had the task of taking this rather ambitious concept devised by Paul Oliver and
making it work as an experience for students in the light of the professional
contexts we were familiar with. We were also expected in due course to turn it
into a full three year degree, a development that did not turn out to be possible,
nationally or institutionally, until the mid 80s. Fairly soon, though, the ‘design’
element implied in the original course title was dropped and the work became
focussed within the specific theme of Art and Social Context. At this particular
historical moment, the course could rightly claim to be virtually unique, since
there were very few courses in Britain or abroad with any thing like this focus. (5)

What we meant by ‘context’

I have been asked countless times (by students, prospective students, by validating
committees, etc.) what ‘context’ means in terms of art. In reply to the question, I
would usually say something to the effect that art and context is to do with
bringing art practice out of the studio and closer to everyday life – achieving this
in any and every way one can think of. Also, that awareness of context applies at
many levels, including the immediate context (where and with whom one works –
who the work is for), as well as the wider cultural contexts in which we live. The
sceptics would often say, “isn’t all art in a social context?” While true, this was
really missing the point. The course was specifically addressing the issue of
context – therefore different to courses and practices that left this aspect of art
unquestioned. Also, we were primarily relating our work to places and groups
within which art is not normally practised (i.e. not just any context). Ideally,
contextual art was an art that would only make sense (and sometimes could only
exist) within its chosen setting – as John Latham had put it – ‘The context is half
the work’. In actual fact, our explanations concerning context never really came
home to students until they experienced what it meant in practice – in terms of
their own work applied in particular settings. (6)

The course content and its sources

Art and Social Context encompassed what was actually a fairly loose assortment of
approaches, some of which (on the face of it) were in conflict with each other.
However this could often be a fruitful conflict and the juxtaposition of these
different approaches and positions was what made the work interesting. The
approaches, as described below, were not rigidly built into the course structure
(we were at pains to avoid simply a training in any existing category of practice),
but they did reflect various camps and affiliations within the staff and student
body. They also reflected a range of what was going on in Britain at the time in
the realm of ‘contextual art’ (although the actual term was to emerge much later).
The approaches were as follows:

a) The aim of widening access to arts practice (participation outside the

realms of professional art: This focus drew upon the traditions of Dartington and the
early manifestation of the College as an arts centre. Ivor Weeks, a key member of our
team and a previous Head of Department, had originally run inspirational adult education
courses in art as part of this arts centre (George, of ‘Gilbert and George’, was an early
student). In terms of our course, this focus upon ‘art for everyone’ was to do with training
the artist-teacher, capable of working, not so much in education itself, but in the wider
community. Some of the students interested in this approach would continue into Art
Therapy or Art for Special Needs (Bruce Kent’s professional involvement in the latter also
provided opportunities for students). In the short term, this aim of widening access to art,

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catered to the personal creative development of each individual student. My own

particular interest in strategies for creative work, also fed into this aspect of the course. In
pursuing this interest I had been inspired by such writers as Marion Milner and D.W.
Winnicott, who understood creativity as being at the heart of all human life, not on some
rarefied edge of it.

b) Community Arts: Paulo Freire’s book, Cultural Action for Freedom, had appeared in
a Penguin edition in 1972. It articulated a view that provided the spirit of community arts.
This was that cultural production was the right and property of everyone. Su Braden’s
book, Artists and People, published in 1978, (sponsored by the Gulbenkian Foundation),
helped to raise the profile of community arts, documenting such initiatives as The
Paddington Print Shop in London, The Great Georges Project in Liverpool, The
Manchester Hospital Arts Project, Freeform, David Harding’s work as a ‘Town Artist’ at
Glenrothes New Town, and the Craigmillar Festival – work that was mostly based in
deprived urban areas and concerned with unleashing the creative energies of people who
for one reason or another lacked a ‘voice’. As has been well described, community arts was
seen at the time as a radical ‘movement’, not, as it later became, simply a matter of local
authority provision. (7) There was actually some determined resistance from many
community artists to the idea of community arts being institutionalised through education
and some (understandable) pressure from the artists involved that any training offered
should be done from within their own ranks. Although many students later went into
community arts, we never claimed to be offering a training in it. Rather, community arts
offered one of several models of practice that students would need to be aware of. The
many groups and projects around Britain provided a huge resource for visiting staff, work
experience, and examples to study. Parallel to these contacts in Britain, from the late
1970s through the 1980s, we were beginning to make contact with a number of activist art
groups and artists in the USA. These included Suzanne Lacy, whose large scale
participatory performances and tableaux, such as, Whisper the Waves the Wind (1984), or
The Road of Poems and Boarders (1990), became a model for another kind of ‘artist led’
intervention, different to community arts, but sharing many of its aims. (8)

c) Public Art: It is true that ‘public art’ or ‘art in public places’, has a long history as art
in conjunction with architecture and urban design, reflecting church or state power, and
even in the 20th century was often the domain of famous artists responding to (often
rather grand) public commissions. But it had fairly recently emerged in a new, more
participatory form, in which artists tried in various ways to involve local people in the
work and to reflect the place in which the work was located. David Harding, fresh from
being ‘town artist’ at Glenrothes New Town in Fife, brought with him to Dartington this
more human, small scale and participatory vision of public art. It took inspiration from
the eccentric structures that ‘outsider artists’ built for themselves (e.g. the Watts Towers in
Los Angeles, or the monuments of Le Facteur Cheval in Southern France); the Chicago,
San Francisco and other murals representing particular cultural groupings and
minorities; the town art phenomenon itself; and a growing number of small scale
environmental works, such as those by Jamie McCullough, or the organisation Common
Ground. Later the temporary and conceptual public art work of Krystof Wadiczko, Jochen
Gerz and Jenny Holzer pointed the way to other possibilities, a now-you-see- it-now-
you-don’t form of public art, in stark contrast to those huge statues of the Soviet era that
had to be trucked away when it all came apart. (We had some difficulty at times in
persuading validating bodies that we were not training students to build monuments of
any kind). The community arts and public art element of the course was introduced at
Dartington largely through the influence of David Harding and later developed by Sally
Morgan, who took up his post in 1986, after he had left to initiate what became the highly
successful course in Environmental Art at Glasgow.

d) Critical art practice: This approach to context viewed art as a form of cultural
enquiry, often in opposition to the dominant culture of the time. It stressed questions of
audience and intent and the ‘reading’ of images as part of a wider visual culture. Art work
stemming from this approach typically took on issues that had become problem areas in

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the culture – issues of race, class, gender, sexuality being recurrent among them. For
individual students, it was often an opportunity to see questions concerning their own
lives within a wider cultural frame – an obvious example being issues then current within
the women’s movement (9). Academically, this work was supported through
contemporary cultural studies and film studies. John Hall, a poet and inspirational
teacher enabled successive generations of students to successfully grapple with
contemporary French philosophy and the intricacies of semiotics. It was through the
cultivation a ‘critical art practice’, that the Dartington course achieved an integration of
theoretical and practical work that was I think quite unusual in art courses at the time.

The above themes (a-d) could be viewed simply as aspects of any contextual
practice, reflecting the who? why? where? and for whom? of contextual art. But
they could also be at war with each other, each position seeming to the others to
be lacking in some key ingredient. Work done in the name of community or public
art could at times be visually crude and critically unsophisticated; workdone in the
name of individual creative expression could be self enclosed and unfocussed;
work attempting cultural critique could be impenetrable or, conversely, mind
bashingly obvious, (i.e.. where some issue or other was beaten to death by the
student concerned). Somewhere between all these hazards, good work could
emerge. The course structure attempted to integrate all these positions into a
single practice, where artistic competence, strategies for work in community
settings, and cultural awareness could be built up together. Combining these
elements within a single programme of work was perhaps its most distinctive
feature.

Working across the arts

Dartington’s three arts structure (art, theatre and music) offered other
opportunities beyond what was going on in the Art Department, which I (and
several other staff), found particularly exciting. For one thing, the precedents in
drama for engaging with social change and for community involvement were well
established. Community arts itself often operated across the arts and there were
well established community theatre companies such as Welfare State, Horse and
Bamboo, IOU, Bread and Puppet Theatre in the USA, that worked outside regular
theatre settings and touched into traditional forms of community celebration.
Augusto Boal’s famous ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ offered powerful possibilities of
direct political and social intervention. Over the years, art, music and theatre
students engaged together in many group and community projects that added a
colourful and exciting dimension to the work. (10)

The students
Students were drawn to Art and Social Context from all over Britain. Intake was
around thirty a year with a relatively high proportion of mature students. They
mostly arrived on the course not fully knowing what it was about, often drawn to
an alternative way of approaching art or with a sense that they would like to
combine an art practice with working with others. Some had specific social
concerns they felt would not be accepted or supported in a traditional art school.
Because motivation was a crucial factor for this kind of course, we took students
with a wide range of abilities. Therefore, a particular focus at an early stage was to
bring up the skill level of weaker students. In this we benefited from a staff used
to working with unskilled people in a community setting.

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Student residencies (11)

Our primary educational devices for this work in addition to normal studio
practice, seminars, etc., were staff- led group projects (in college or based in the
community), work experience (in which students went out to join relevant
professional groups and projects) and the student artist’s residency (which we
originally referred to as ‘Placement’). Whereas work experience entailed
attachment to a professional arts organisation, the residencies (generally in the
final year of the course) involved students in choosing and working in contact
with a setting where art was not normally practised. Students were expected to
initiate their own live project in the chosen setting, often with participation from
people who lived or worked there. While the group work and work experience
proved powerful devices, the real driving force and often formative influence for
students was the residency, which increasingly over the years gave the course its
identity. Students often said that it was only through doing their residencies that
they suddenly understood what contextual art was about. This could also be a
severe challenge to students, many of whom were still at a vulnerable stage with
their own artistic maturity. To balance students’ artistic development with
community- based work was one of our biggest challenges and the source of
endless curriculum adjustment.

In describing the course to others, the most inspiring aspect of it and the one that
excited most curiosity was always the amazing variety of settings different
students managed to engage with. Whatever you cared to name, our students had
been there and done it. Student residencies included: a public laundry, a terrace
house, a fish shop, Water Board offices, shopping malls, bus stops, a Macdonald’s
restaurant, youth groups, weight watcher’s groups, adventure playgrounds, streets,
centres for people with disability, orphanages, an industrial museum, a
gymnasium, pubs, a church, railway stations, schools, a foundry, a biological
research centre…. the list could go on and on.

The essence of the student residency (as with the APG – see footnote 11) was that
work should emerge from a sustained contact with the setting, what went on
there, and the people concerned. Thus it required students to investigate and to
react to whatever they found – not just to ‘weigh in’ with a pre-formed idea. This
was a ‘listening’ model of art practice, which could be slow and possibly
undramatic, but if well handled would always lead to work that connected
organically and surprisingly to the chosen setting and could not have been
conceived or exist without it. Starting with an ‘open brief’ was the crucial factor.

Assessment of this work could be a headache – somehow we had to balance

judgments of product and process – i.e. artistic competence in what was produced
with other (less visible) abilities in setting up and running projects and working
with others. Where, a student showed considerable strength in one of these and
not the other, judgment became quite difficult.

Closure of the Dartington course and the move to Bristol

The course at Dartington was brought to an unexpected and premature ending. At
the close of the academic year 1989-1990, it suddenly transpired that the College
was substantially in debt. A restructuring and scaling down had to take place and

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in the process the Art Department was squeezed out. The full reasons for this have
never been made public, but the official argument was that a simplified (more
economical) college would best survive if it reduced its portfolio of courses to
performing arts only. In these cynical times, it is seldom acknowledged how much
love and care can go into an educational process, when the people working within
it really believe in the work (and this applies as much to students as to staff). All
the more shattering then if, what has been so carefully nursed along against all
sorts of odds, is suddenly and arbitrarily abandoned for institutional (rather than
academic) reasons. We were all therefore (staff and students) profoundly shaken
by the news of closure. A campaign against closure was mounted but was
unsuccessful. However, we refused to accept that this educational project was at
an end and went looking for an alternative host institution.

As it turned out, the course was set up again immediately at Bristol Polytechnic
(which soon became University of the West of England), restarting even before the
Dartington course had finally closed. This was thanks to the mediation of Iain
Biggs (then Head of Fine Art), who saw an interesting possibility of running two
Fine Art courses with differing philosophies side by side. While this did not help
the majority of the Dartington staff or the remaining students, it ensured the
continuity of the project that we had all worked for. Meanwhile at Dartington, a
new ‘Visual Performance’ course was initiated by Sally Morgan (an art course with
a performance remit) and, as I understand, the replanning of all courses drew
partly from the thinking that had informed Art and Social Context.

Developments at Bristol
In Bristol, the new possibilities offered within a city (as compared to the rural
surroundings of Dartington), obviously provided an exciting new challenge, both
in terms of public work and the close links it gave us to professional groups and
individual artists working in our field. (An active link to ‘Vizability’, a community
art collective, was especially fruitful). Under Nick Lowe (a performance artist
working with video and photography, who had recently done innovative work with
people in prison), the group/ community project element in the Second Year
developed and expanded, taking advantage of the wide range of schools and other
community organisations available. Through these projects, through third year
residencies and through work experience placements, we were able rapidly to
build up a very wide network of contacts in Bristol and beyond, which included
the City Council, the main cultural centres, such as the Watershed and Arnolfini
Gallery, Sustrans (the national cycle path organisation), the city markets, and a
host of other official and unofficial bodies.

Students flowed out from the Faculty in what became a series of seasonal
migrations. Second Years set out on group/ public projects around the city in the
autumn, then further afield for work experience in early summer. Spring into
summer saw the Third Years flow out to their separate residencies around the city
and immediate region. Summer saw the First Years in groups creating site-specific
works around the campus. At other times work proceeded in the studio.

Given the close proximity of the existing course in Fine Art, we felt the need from
the outset to make the revived Art and Social Context as different to Fine Art as
possible. Our students began to make extensive use of photography, video,

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performance, and installation (as distinct from the more traditional media then
favoured by the Fine Art students). The burgeoning of new electronic technologies
in the 90s also opened up digital imagery as a medium and the internet as a
potential context within which students might work. To further distinguish the
work emerging from Art and Social Context, the residency was extended, (initially)
to include the whole of the third year, thus ensuring that the final work of our
students was quite different in aim and character from the primarily studio-based
work in Fine Art. But there were also many overlaps between the two subject
areas, and increasingly as time went on, staff from both subject areas contributed
across the board and students from the two shared studios with resulting cross
fertilisation of ideas and practices. In 1999 a common First Year was introduced,
thus consolidating moves towards this relationship within difference. In the mid
90s, Art and Social Context changed its name to ‘Fine Art in Context’ to locate it
clearly within what became known as the ‘Fine Arts Field’. (The undergraduate
course, now entering its 25th year of operation, still continues today, now under
the slightly modified title, ‘Fine Art and Context’).

For the undergraduate programme, our work in the first ten years at Bristol
divided roughly into three periods: 1) an initial period, which one might call
curriculum and staff driven, in which we put much staff effort into structuring and
supporting the group and public dimensions of the work. 2) a middle period,
which was more student driven, in which we loosened some of the requirements
for group and public work in order to encourage more variety of approach and
allow each student more artistic room for manouvre. (This period was in fact
marked by a raising of artistic and technical standards). 3) a later period, in which
we sought a much greater degree of integration between what were by then three
Fine Art based courses. It is no coincidence that these developments also
paralleled a steadily falling staff provision in relation to an increasing number of
students. Although each of the above stages had its educational rationale, each
also afforded economies in staffing. Such moves were reflected across the board in
Higher Education at the time.

It is hard to characterise the student residencies in Bristol with just a few

examples, since they were all so diverse and so particular to each student’s
interests. One student chose a residency at what had once been a complex of large
orphanages, contacting and interviewing elderly people who had grown up there.
She then introduced into one of the buildings small assemblages that
commemorated particular childhood incidents (each located in the place the
incident had occurred). Another student, through an exploration of personal ads
in a local paper and subsequent contacts made, set up a performance in the back
room of a pub where she enacted a rendezvous with (invited) individual viewers.
Another, again, worked with a small group of schoolgirls to build a shelter, a
small but exotic folly in a local park. These were not untypical of Third Year work,
which always connected out beyond the confines of art or art education into some
aspect of ordinary life in local communities.

As time went on (starting in 1997), we were able to add to the provision of courses
an M.A. in Fine Art in Context, thus allowing a more questioning and professional
level of work than had been possible at undergraduate level. For those of us who
had taught on the undergraduate programme for some years, this was a welcome

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step forward in sophistication and an opportunity to deploy some of our own

research interests in support. The MA also brought the whole staff team and
students together in discussions of some of the historical and philosophical roots
of our work. Following the establishment of the MA, a research centre was
created, in Contextual, Public and Commemorative Art, which was intended to
formalise links between the activities of the various staff pursuing these themes in
their research and professional practice. Jane Calow was brought in to coordinate
this research which (as the title suggests) ranged widely, e.g. from contextually
oriented performance and inter-arts work to historical and cultural research, and
work related to places (as we perceive and experience them or record how they
change).

During the 90s there had been a proliferation of similar undergraduate and post
graduate courses to our own in universities and colleges elsewhere in Britain (12).
Also, certain educational institutions in other European countries were following
similar lines. We had made working links through students, ex-students and staff
with a number of these, notably in France, Luxembourg, and in Germany, where
the Hochskul de Kunst in Berlin adopted the title ‘Kunst und Context’ for one of
its ongoing postgraduate programmes. But in the UK itself, wider changes in
public arts policy and provision were occurring that would entirely change the
climate in which we had been operating.

Institutional absorption of the context idea

In comparison to the world which spawned our course, Art and Social Context, in
the late 70s there has since been a profound re-configuration of the arts and an
absorption into the main stream of much that we were attempting. ‘Cultural
democracy’, the holy grail of community arts, clearly did not come about, except
perhaps temporarily, for a particular community at some special moment (e.g.
Craigmillar), nor was there a complete re-conceiving of Art and Design education,
such as was mooted in the1970s. Yet, many of the approaches to art that existed
only as fringe movements when we began, have since become an integral part of
official cultural policy.

Today there is a huge subsidised sector of the visual and other arts (as distinct
from the commercial sector). The funding policies of Regional Arts Boards and
The Arts Council of England now clearly reflect an obligation towards the
community at large. These official bodies generally require subsidised artists and
groups to give convincing evidence that their work will reach and benefit (perhaps
directly involve) some disadvantaged sector of the community. Public galleries, art
museums, and arts centres, maintain highly active educational and outreach
policies. In addition specific cultural groups, which by virtue of class, race, gender,
etc., were excluded up to and during the 1970s, are now very deliberately included
within the collections and exhibition policies of public galleries.

Community Arts, Hospital Arts, Arts in Schools, and residencies in general, have
all been taken up and absorbed into public sector arts policy. Public Art (often
funded by ‘percent for art’ schemes) now graces almost all urban centres and the
presence of art in public places is now seen as ‘a good thing’ by almost any
planning authority or local council. Such bodies will happily spend sums on art as
part of urban regeneration, in the expectation of a future economic return from

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ART AND SOCIAL CONTEXT contextual art practice in education » David Harding

the environmental and social benefit. A network of independent agencies regularly

commission permanent and temporary work in public places (eg. Artangel, Artists
Agency, Locus+). Many lesser known and well known artists now make a career in
this field. (The success of Anthony Gormley as an exponent of public art is a case
in point). Art therapy (a continuing outlet for some of our students), which was
once regarded in the Health Service as a rather suspect and unproven therapeutic
practice, now has a recognised system of accreditation and has become an
accepted part of healthcare provision. A broad spectrum of work under the
heading ‘Arts and Health’ now also receives funding. While the commercial gallery
world does not need to demonstrate any particular sense of public obligation,
many of the artists it fosters pursue social, political and cultural questions in their
work and this is rather more accepted today than it was in a more formalist and
detached period, say, thirty years ago.

Taking all these examples together, it is clear that contextual art in its many
forms is now firmly on the map. Universities and Colleges need to take account of
the opportunities for graduating students. Since few make it into the gallery world
as a career, this means that a high proportion of those that carry on in art at all,
will find themselves practising some form of contextual art (many working both
within and outside the gallery system as opportunities arise). (13) Most Fine Art
courses now offer at least elements of contextual art practice within their
curriculum, even if not formulated as such. Yet, Fine Art education in general
seems to remain deeply committed to the conventional image of the gallery artist.
In his intelligent and penetrating essay, The Good Enough Artist, Donald Kuspit
argued the need to “recover a sense of human purpose in art making” (14). His
view (shared by many others), was that the over heroic and grandiose idea of the
avant-garde artist, so prevalent in the 20th century, had outlived its time. Avant-
garde had become a self serving stereotype – merely a form of self marketing.
Without going into his arguments, I like to think that the student artist working
‘in context’ is a prototype of Kuspit’s ‘good enough artist’….an artist for the future,
not seeking to heroically change society through utopian visions, nor, in another
heroic stance, to see their art as some superior form of suffering, but instead
engaged in rediscovering a human sense of artistic purpose through relating their
work to the realities of life as it is actually lived.

1. A series of important exhibitions at the major public galleries in London reflected a general
climate of change – e.g. Art for Whom? at the Serpentine Gallery, Apr-May 1978, selected by
Richard Cork; Issue, Social Strategies by Women Artists, Nov-Dec 1980, selected by Lucy
Lippard; Lives, at the Hayward Gallery, selected by Derek Boshier. A social view of art was
also promoted at the time in certain key journals (see for example, Studio International, Art &
Social Purpose, special issue, March/ April 1976)

2. Our ideas were not in themselves new. What we did was to bring several disparate ideas and
practices together into an educational project – a unique endeavour at the time, given what
those ideas and practices were.

3. The Elmhirsts’ interest in making arts practice accessible to the ordinary person was taken
up organisationally at Dartington, first in an ‘Art Department’, created in 1934, which had a
professional as well as an educational role, and later in the form of an Adult Education
Centre offering art classes to the general public. (See Michael Young’s excellent book, The
Elmhirsts of Dartington, Routledge,1982). The Adult Education Centre duly developed into a
college, run by Peter Cox, which from the mid 60s became a nationally validated institution,
offering arts education courses and later specialist degrees. Dartington’s unorthodox and

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ART AND SOCIAL CONTEXT contextual art practice in education » David Harding

anti-institutional attitudes were not always suited to official validating procedures. Becoming
a recognised college within the system was not easy and included some reversals of fortune.
It was achieved with degree courses in Music and in Theatre by the early and mid 70s
respectively. Both had elements in them of community-based practice. In view of
Dartington’s rural setting, outposts were quickly developed for urban, community-based
work in Plymouth and in Rotherhithe. Students studying Music in the Community, validated a
bit later, went to Bristol for their practical community projects (largely in schools). The Art
Department had for a while run an art education course directed by Ivor Weeks, a 2 year +1
year arrangement with Roll College in Exmouth. It had established a Dip HE (two years at
degree level) by 1977.

4. Paul Oliver, who took over as Head of Art and Design in 1973 was recognised as a brilliant
polymath, an artist-designer and prolific author, who had previously taught at the
Architectural Association in London and brought with him a vision of the generalist artist-
designer such as might have emerged from the Bauhaus. But Paul Oliver’s vision also had a
lot to do with the national crisis and debate about the role of art and design courses in the
immediate aftermath of the famous Hornsey student revolt in 1968. (see, David Warren Piper
(ed..), After Hornsey, vols. 1 and 2. Davis Pointer Ltd., 1973). For a detailed account of the
history of the College see Peter Cox’s unpublished memoir, My Time at Dartington, vol. 1,
1940-73 and vol. 2, 1973-83 – available in the Dartington Archive and the College Library, now
also published in summary as a booklet: Cox, P. Origins, Dartington College of Arts, 2002.

5. Parallel educational developments were also taking place in the late 1970s and early 80s at
what were then East London Polytechnic; at Newcastle Polytechnic and Bradford College. At
a later stage, similar courses arose at Glasgow (Environmental Art), Wolverhampton,
Sunderland, Exeter (student residencies), Birmingham, Cardiff, (also Public Art MAs at:
Canterbury, Wimbledon, Dundee ), and St. Martins in London (Critical Fine Art Practice). At
around the time we began, a new critical version of art history was emerging, countering the
traditional Courtauld approach. For example, Terry Atkinson, Griselda Pollock and others
introduced a critical approach to art and art history as part of the Fine Art course at Leeds
University. It was sometimes argued that all courses in Fine Art included an element of
‘contextual art’ in the form of community projects which occurred from time to time,
therefore, why claim it as a special thing? Our rejoinder was that for us it was an exclusive
and fully worked through focus, not a tag-on to a conventional course of study.

6. I used to visit many art faculties around Britain as part of a recruitment drive aimed at
foundation students. I would look at what was being done in the studios at all levels and
would ask myself what this work told me about the world in which it was made. Often it
seemed to bear little relation to anything outside the studio. It became a personal ambition
that our own work would manifestly have something to say about the world at large.

7. see, for example, Malcolm Dickson (ed..) Art with People, AN publications, 1995

8. see Nina Felshin (ed..) But is it Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism, Bay Press, 1995, or
Suzanne Lacy’s own book, Mapping the Terrain, New Genre Public Art, Bay Press, 1995.

9. The late seventies and early eighties at Dartington, with a high proportion of female students,
became something of a hotbed of feminist action. A largely male staff needed to be urgently
boosted with female visitors. This unbalanced situation (faced by most art colleges at the
time), was later alleviated as other appointments became possible. Among the new female
staff that joined the department was Rose Garrard, an artist with a growing reputation for her
feminist work, in the form of installation and occasional public art.

10. My own particular research and creative work linking art and dance through collaborative
projects with Mary Fulkerson and others, took off in this environment and led to
collaborative performances and a subsequent book – Chris Crickmay and Miranda Tufnell –
Body, Space, Image, Notes on Improvisation and Performance, Dance Books, 1993.

11. Our original focus on the art student ‘placement’ or residency was directly inspired by the
Artists Placement Group (founded by John Latham and Barbara Stavini), who had pioneered
the idea of placing artists (as ‘the incidental person’) in industry, government departments
and other settings. Artists were given an ‘open brief’ to work creatively in that setting. This

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ART AND SOCIAL CONTEXT contextual art practice in education » David Harding

was an idea for bringing artists and people into close proximity, which would subsequently
be taken up by the Arts Council and RAAs, albeit in a somewhat more conservative form as
the Artist’s Residency.

12. Certain colleges suddenly (and we thought rather suspiciously) expressed an interest in
community-based work perhaps as a lifeline, since Fine Art in England and Wales was then
under immense pressure to justify its relevance or to suffer massive cuts. The expected cuts
in courses never transpired, although effective cuts in funding did. Like everyone else in the
sector, we struggled to sustain a viable educational experience, despite fewer and fewer
staff working with more and more students. In 1978, the staff/ student ratio at Dartington was
something like 7/1. Today, ratios of 40/1 are not untypical in Fine Art. The extraordinary thing
is that this can still work, though at what cost?

13. Art and Social Context (with its emphasis upon ‘relevance’ and live projects), had (and still
has) much to offer vocationally in posing the problem early to students as to how, where,
and with whom they might work in the future. Students in fact scattered widely in terms of
subsequent employment, often after further professional training, but many found work in
areas mapped out by the course.

14. Donald Kuspit, ‘The Good enough Artist’, in Signs of the Psyche in Modern and Postmodern
Art, Cambridge U.P., 1993.

Acknowledgements

In concluding this account, I would like to acknowledge the work of my colleagues

who over the years included: Ivor Weeks, David Harding, John Hall, Sally
Morgan, Steve Hoare, Bruce Kent, John Gridley, Rose Garrard, Sheila Clayton,
Pen Dalton (a regular part timer), and from the earlier years, Harrison Dix,
Graham Green and Karen Watts. Frequent visiting staff also included Kate Walker
and Flick Allen. I would also like to thank our support staff, especially Gail Lloyd,
a well loved Department Secretary. Thanks also to Peter Cox who created the
opening and then let us get on with it. Then, from our Bristol years, I would like
to thank Ian Biggs for making it possible, then (again) Sally Morgan (with whom I
swapped places, when she became Award Leader and subsequently Field Leader in
Fine Arts), also Nicholas Lowe, and our frequent visiting staff, Deborah Jones,
Sadie Spikes, Alan Boldon, Annie Menter, Annie Lovejoy and Jeanette
McSkimming. Also to be mentioned is Jane Calow, who began as an external
examiner, but joined our team at a later stage. I would also like to acknowledge
the contribution of all our colleagues in Fine Art, who became increasingly close
professionally as time went on, and some of whom have now taken over the role of
running the undergraduate award in Fine Art and Context. Then, I would like to
acknowledge the significant contribution of students (Dip HE, degree and
postgraduate) over the years, who, through their creative efforts as students and
since then as professionals, have put Art and Social Context into action, often in
ways we would not have imagined. Lastly I would like to thank our many external
examiners who advised and encouraged us, especially: David Warren-Piper,
Caroline Tisdall, Rita Donagh, Judith Williamson, Peter Byrne, Katie McLeod, Jill
Journeaux, Jane Calow and Esther Salamon.

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