opensourceartschool.com

The recent demise of the fine arts degree at the University of Western Sydney has brought to the fore the need to document the history of the program. At the moment I’m seeing this imperative also as an opportunity to develop the OSAS into something more substantial than what we have produced to date. The idea is to develop this space into dynamic archive of UWS teaching and student experience. This archive will include: projects that were given to students at UWS (see below), interviews with students discussing how they responded to those projects and interviews with staff in which they give us an insight into their teaching methodologies and philosophies. But as the title of the post suggests, (and in keeping with the original purpose of this website) I am also envisioning this as a space where the archive, (and the teaching and student experience it contains), can live on and take new forms. This means providing a space for new responses to the projects posted here from ex-students and anyone else who is moved to create something out of the materials they find here. Within the OSAS website these responses could be in any form this technology allows (written, audio, video etc.).

To give you a sense of how this might proceed I have posted below one of the projects developed by ex-UWS lecturer Terry Hayes. Before I get on to the project its worth mentioning and acknowledging the fantastic contribution that Terry has made to arts education during his teaching career and also his generosity in sharing some of his personal archive with us, thanks Terry. As part of his archive Terry has created a record of all the projects that he developed during his time at UWS. These projects are generally non-medium-specific conceptual starting points for the creative process and, with only a few exceptions, were never repeated. Almost all students who did first year foundation studies at UWS will have made work for at least one of these projects. So just to reiterate the plan for the archive and the development of the OSAS is to provide a space for ex-students to share their experiences in responding to this type of project while also allowing for new responses from anyone who is interested. So here’s one of Terry Hayes’ projects:

Don’t Project

 

Year:   1997

Level: First Years, Autumn Semester 1

Unit:    33062 Foundation Studies 1

Duration:       4 days

Dates: May 19, 26, June 2, 16

 

             

Origin

This project was code named ‘The Muster’ and concluded the sequence of projects and workshops offered during the semester.

 

 

 

Premise

Adopting the same strategy of all participating staff contributing material from a commonly agreed upon topic. I thought it would be strategically interesting to operate through a set of directives all in the negative that collectively would indicate what the participants were not allowed to do. This idea arose from the most frequent criticisms generally levelled at work produced in foundation studies: usually attempts at discouraging predictable outcomes, the well-trammelled routes followed by the less creatively dextrous, falling prey to clichés of various kinds, or relied upon standard markers of art practice often well-worn and banal.

 

The conceit of indicating what they were not to do, was also in part prompted by the amusing title of the Foundation Staff show “No Angels, No Trumpets” (April ‘93) (Itself borrowed anecdotally from Jim Turner, a Sculpture Lecturer from Wimbledon School of Art, when he once related, in reference to the dilemma of what to title a work, following on from the question: “Are there any Angels or Trumpets in the painting?” the answer being in the negative, the retort then being: “Well call it ‘No Angels, No Trumpets!” I liked the contra-indicative nature of the title: its unhelpfulness in providing any insight into the work in question, if anything confusing the reception with Baroque overtones.

 

Whilst I was the prime instigator of the “Don’t” project, the sheet issued contained no injunctions of mine, as already there quickly arose a surplus from among those submitted by the others in the team, further inundation was not helpful.

 

From my notes at the time the ‘don’ts’ I was intrigued to contribute centred around what would normally be considered ‘characteristic’ and thus familiar. The encouragement to adopt an alien persona: A postman? A plumber? A cartoon character? An identity that was not their own and to make something they could not relate to or necessarily explain, so that when asked the question: ‘What are you doing?’ the appropriate response would be ‘I have no idea’. Familiar patterns of recognition and ownership (this is my work) could be undermined and destabilised through this process and create the propensity for ‘things’ that were ‘unrecognisable’ and perhaps more intriguing because of their uncertain status.