Radical Lessons will be the first large-scale project to critically assess the importance and legacy of experimental cultures of learning in late twentieth century UK art schools. Spanning over thirty years of educational developments between the 1960 Coldstream report on art education to the creation of “modern” universities in 1992, this period in the history of art education was marked by the emergence of performative, intermedia, non-object and time-based art forms and the pedagogies and the resources required to support them. It is also a period marked by radical challenges to the institutions, authorities and pedagogies of art education, often from self-organised groups of students informed by the politics of feminism, accessibility, race and class, and sexuality.
For the first time, the project will undertake carefully selected case studies of departments of art across UK nations and regions in order to show how state-wide policies, local educational developments, radical teachers and student initiatives came together in transforming the conditions for experimental arts practices with lasting impact into the 21st century.
The project is being developed by Gavin with performance scholar and curator Heike Roms.