Download pdf of Conference Abstracts and Programme
5.50pm: Prof Jonathan Woodham, Professor of Design History, University of Brighton: Welcome
6.00pm: Prof Julian Crampton, Vice Chancellor, University of Brighton: Introduction
6.15–7.00pm: Prof Sir Christopher Frayling
'The New Bauhaus – An Art and Design Institution for the 21st Century'
Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, Rector and Professor of Cultural History at the Royal College of Art, London, is also a writer, historian and broadcaster whose views are further informed by the experience of chairing two major British cultural organisations, the Design Council and the Arts Council.
If a New Bauhaus, a new school of art and design, was being founded from scratch in 2009 – knowing all that we now know – what would it be like? What would it be for? How might it relate to the contemporary practices of art and design?
The New Bauhaus looks at art and design education in the UK at the turn of the last century – when the system thought it was facing the challenges of the new twentieth century, but was in reality embedded in Arts & Crafts thinking – and then reappraises the legacy of the original Bauhaus of 1919-32, puncturing some of the myths and taking a look behind the outstandingly effective branding.
The lecture then, bearing these cautionary tales in mind, explores in detail The New Bauhaus as a genuinely contemporary expression of life within the academy.
7.15-8.30pm: Reception and Private Viewing of 150 Anniversary exhibition, Grand Parade Gallery
9.30am: Refreshments
10.00–10.45am: Prof Bruce Brown
The UK Research Councils have exerted a powerful influence on the shape and nature of current art and design education, as well as influencing its future. Professor Bruce Brown, the University of Brighton's Director of Research Development, has fulfilled roles on national and international bodies and has been a key figure in the UK’s 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for which he had major responsibility for overseeing the work of review panels for Art and Design, History of Art, Architecture and Design, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts, Communications, Cultural and Media Studies and Music.
Since their inception in the mid 19th century the academies of art and design have evolved in response to influences and pressures that were economic, social and political. This presentation will track the key points in their evolution with an emphasis on the half-century of intense, and often turbulent, change between 1960-2009. It will also consider public misconceptions of this period to suggest that, far from their 60’s stereotype as elements of radical instability within the system, the arts schools have been surprisingly stable entities throughout a period when many modern universities have branded and re-branded themselves beyond any decent form of recognition.
11.00–11.45am: Prof Darren Newbury
'Making the path as we walk it: the present and future of doctoral education in art and design'
Professor Darren Newbury from Birmingham City University has played a significant national role in developing visual research methods and the publication of research training resources for postgraduates in art and design. He is also the editor of the electronic publication Research Issues in Art, Design and Media (RIADM) and of the international journal Visual Studies and has a research background in photography and cultural studies.
I recently had a discussion with a supervisor who felt that the earlier redrawing of their regulations, supposedly to suit practice-based PhDs, now left them with a format that was constraining rather than enabling. I wonder if others have found themselves in the same position. What I do want to think about in this paper, therefore, are two questions: where are we now and where are we going? I will offer a brief survey of the research and research training landscape as I see it, and the challenges and opportunities that exist. Among the challenges I think one must include the different positions of design and fine art.
12.00–12.45pm Dr Darlie O Koshy
'Designing Design Education for 21st Century India: Contexts, Concerns & Challenges'
Speaking from the context of one of the world’s major emerging design economies is Dr Darlie O Koshy, the Director General of Education and Training Initiatives of the Apparel Export Promotion Council, sponsored by the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India. He has taken on this role in the context of the huge skill development thrust that is under way in India. Until recently Dr O Koshy was Director of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedebad, India; he also spearheaded the drafting of the National Design Policy approved by the Indian Government in February 2007.
The approach to design education in the post independent India had been Crafts and Skills oriented set very much in an apprenticeship mode. India is now in the throes of change in many spheres and the deep socio-economic changes portend a new India on the anvil. The sweeping winds of change affect advancement of the profession of design as well and therefore the approach to both under-graduate and post-graduate design programmes need to be redesigned as we prepare GenNext designers.
1.00–2.00pm: Lunch in Grand Parade Restaurant
2.00–2.45pm: Prof Elaine Aston
'Creative Futures; Creating Futures: Close Encounters of the Practice Kind'
Professor Elaine Aston, Professor of Contemporary Performance at Lancaster University, will lend further disciplinary insights. She has published in the fields of feminism, theatre, theory and performance and was a founding member of the Feminist Research Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR).
My purpose in this presentation is to offer a series of reflections on future directions for practice-based, creative subjects from this point in our creative histories when practice has been (more or less) legitimised and encouraged as a research activity. These reflections or ‘encounters’ begin with rehearsing a need to get closer to each other’s (‘strange’) practices in the interests of interdisciplinary exchange and dialogue. Thereafter, examining the historical divide between the artist who makes work and the academic tasked with making meaning out of the work, I move to reflect on ways in which this divide is shifting: moving towards artist and academic encounters of a more productive kind.
3.00–3.45pm: Anne Burdick
Anne Burdick, Chair of the graduate Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design in California, a leading US design institution, is dedicated to developing research within graduate level design education in an American context and defining the future of design as both a discipline and a practice. Renowned for her design of complex text-based projects across a variety of media environments, she is one of the most feted transmedia designers in America, having won a wide range of awards including the Leipzig Prize for the Most Beautiful Book in the World and I.D. Magazine's award for interactive design. Her own research addresses the relationship between language, technology, and cultural practices.
4.00–4.30pm: Refreshments
4.30–5.15pm: Professor Sir David Watson
'Plenary'
Sir David Watson, Professor of Higher Education Management at the Institute of Education, University of London, has published extensively in the field of higher education policy and practice and is a regular keynote speaker at national and international conferences. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Brighton from 1990 to 2005 and was knighted in 1998 for ‘services to higher education’. He was a member of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (Dearing Committee) and he edited The Dearing Report: ten years on (Institute of Education 2007), with Michael Amoah. His current professional roles include President of the Society for Research into Higher Education and Advisory Board Member, Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).
5.15pm: Close
