Speculative Matterings: Re-imagining the Art School Studio

As a sector, we have quite rightly been challenged to rethink how we prepare students for work and develop approaches to our subjects that encourage much wider access and participation. Some institutional priorities (employability metrics, output driven culture, industry needs over creative exploration, student ‘satisfaction’ over learning) have however eroded pedagogic approaches which valued uncertainty, playfulness, material curiosity and creative risk taking. As the focus has shifted elsewhere, studio culture has dwindled, with some students now uncertain or unwilling to use such spaces. What then of the role of the art studio and its pedagogy in developing the capacity for speculative making and thinking that lies at the heart of art practice?  

Our group has been examining the role of the studio as an important and inclusive learning tool that needs better unlocking for art students today. We have gathered documentary evidence of art school studios and the practice of artists - tutors; we have asked educators and students to respond through workshops and interviews to our findings and discuss why the studio is important and how we might create the conditions for practice ‘to happen’. In this presentation we will bring this debate together through the voices and images of our many participants and set out our argument for re-imagining an inclusive studio and a place where students can, once more, learn to be artists.