What’s going on? (3) – An interview with Chris Wainwright

The CCW Graduate School, positioning research in the arts, and the role of ELIA

Last September, University of the Arts London officially launched the Graduate School at CCW  – integrating the MA and research programmes of Camberwell, Chelsea, and Wimbledon Colleges, and creating by far the largest institute for postgraduate arts education in Europe so far. As the Graduate School Launch Directory states, it currently consists of “over 80 research students, over 450 taught postgraduate students, 39 professors, readers and fellows” – in short, it’s huge.

Now it’s not just size that counts. Over the last few decades, there has been a steady but small-scale development towards a research culture in higher arts education – culminating, with the Bologna process, in the emergence of artistic research programmes and PhDs in the arts throughout Europe. The question is whether the launch of the CCW Graduate School also has an impact on these developments. So far, artistic research has not attracted very much attention from the wider public, and has been a somewhat marginal activity even within art schools. Apart from the sheer force of numbers, what does the launch mean for positioning research in the arts? How do these developments in arts education affect the role of art academies, and even the role of the artist?

And more modestly: if things are a-changing in higher arts education, what is the role of ELIA? This question is particularly pressing in interviewing Chris Wainwright, who is both Head of CCW and President of ELIA. (It has also been the topic of a 2008 position paper on artistic research, but the discussion does not end there.) And after arguing for the importance of artistic researchers making their voices heard, this is not merely an issue of facilitating discussion, but also of how ELIA can help making these voices heard.

“What’s going on?”: An interview with Jason Beechey

Under the working title What’s going on?, we’re starting a cycle of interviews on new developments and initiatives in Higher Arts Education. This is number one. Jason Beechey, Rector of Palucca Schule Dresden, talks about the international D.A.N.C.E. programme.