PGCert 2022
Responses to sessions and materials explored during the course

Author: Alex Marshall

Categories
Inclusive Practices

Inclusive Practice Reflective Report: Engaging Vulnerability In Choices We Make 

INTRODUCTION TO ARTEFACT

My artefact is an intervention in my teaching practice where I share examples from films that are indicative of various filmmaking considerations I subsequently teach the students. My choices are examples that inspire me personally. In preparation for the following session, I ask the students to prepare to present their own inspirational example to the group. My intention is to create a dialogue about film examples as a tool for unlocking existing fluency in film language.

My intervention/adaptation uses this opportunity to investigate the choices I make in the objects that I present, in the context of my positionality and the intersectionality of the group. I will use this moment to introduce concepts of social and individual identity and the relevance of this to their own processes and choices in their concept development. Having provided this space for exploration of key terms and concepts, I will ask that the students’ presentation of their own examples is in the context of their own positionality and the intersectionality of our group.

CONTEXT

My journey is a process of ongoing engagement with my practice and with the students I work with. New to lecturing, I had based my approach on experiences as a student and practitioner, relying upon authenticity and passion within the subject and my practice; “good teaching is about the successful combination of passion and reason or ‘passionate reason’.” (Macfarlane, B. 2004)

Authenticity is a complicated and plural concept. Within a room of diverse identities, my interactions are multifarious. My student groups are predominantly white, female and of either British or mixed international origins. I placed the examples I use under review to consider how I could adapt these to make them more inclusive. I felt uncomfortable with the idea of making different choices based on my superficial knowledge of the group to diversify the content. I decided instead to make myself and these choices the subject to explore. In reading Bell Hooks, I have been inspired to find opportunities and ways to embrace my vulnerability (Hooks, 1994) and extend this act of vulnerability. We cannot attempt to fix a problem without engagement with those around us and recognition that the problem exists between all of us. We are all complicit in oppression and must work together to continually recognise and work to affect change, “Our willingness to make sacrifices reflects our awareness of interdependency.” (Hooks, B. 2001)

POSITIONALITY

As a lecturer and practitioner, I must always consider my positionality in both fields in the context of the groups that I work with.

I am a British, white, heterosexual, middle-classed, university educated, male with no disabilities. In the context of London College of Fashion, the fact that I am white makes me within the majority (of 61.8%), while the fact that I am male places me within the minority (of 30.13%). 

London College of Fashion: HR – Staff Diversity by Department

However, in the industry that I practice within and represent through my teaching, I am very much part of the majority in both counts. Recognising the duality of the meanings of such data is an important issue in terms of the ever-changing set of relevant parameters aligning with fixed data. Engagement with this data and its various meanings is vital to my own process of developing awareness of my position of power in the learning environment and engaging my vulnerability through exploration of this data. Starting a dialogue with my students about my own positionality exposes the power dynamics within the group, but also introduces broader concepts of identity and the relevant vocabularies. “Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.” (Friere, P. 2001) 

It is essential to acknowledge ourselves and those that make up the group we are part of in the context of wider social identifiers. To treat those around us as though they are all coming from the same place, the same starting point, is not equality. Rather, it is a method of denying the empowering act of recognising our own social identities and what these mean in the wider world. Instead, “students’ identities need to be taken into account in all educational settings.” (Hahn Tapper, A.J. 2013)

CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

In studying works around Critical Race Theory and Social Identity Theory, I have learned that issues of identity are political, plural and multifarious. 

In Feminism and the challenge of racism, Deviance or difference?, Razia Aziz explores intersecting identities and the effect that categorisation has upon existing similarities between different groups. Aziz questions the political nature of identity in asking the question “What is identity for?” (Aziz, R. 1997) This work has helped me to consider the direction of the gaze of the observer in terms of recognizing social or individual identities. This raises the question of how we consider social groups without consolidating differences and sacrificing similarities. Aziz writes, “the energetic assertion of black/white (or any other) difference tends to create fixed and oppositional categories which can result in another version of the suppression of difference.” (Aziz, R. 1997)

Delineating between concepts of social and individual identity has given me the insight to explore concepts and practices that help to break down the power dynamics of traditional and oppressive learning environments. The first step in this was acknowledging the constructed nature of identity, “…race and races are products of social thought and relations… categories that society invents, manipulates, or retires when convenient” (Delgado, R. and Stefancic, J. 2001). Furthermore, the activity of observing and exploring identities within a group acts to exacerbate existing tensions if individual identities are explored rather than social identities. This direction of observation is key to a group learning together about how they are perceived as members of groups, and how those groups are interconnected. “intergroup encounters must be approached in and through students’ larger social identities.” (Hahn Tapper, A.J. 2013)

Our attachment to our own constructed personal identities can act as a barrier to recognising how we are perceived by others. Engaging with the social identities that exist in the world helps us to reposition ourselves as the other, or through the eyes of perceivable ‘groups’, rather than to observe only our own construction and presentation of self in an individual context. The students I work with can benefit from this repositioning in multiple ways, creating work in a more engaged and considered way.

FEEDBACK / ANALYSIS / REFLECTION

Since I teach on the module for Costume Design between January and May, I have not had the opportunity to fully assess the efficacy of my artefact. However, I have managed to gain valuable feedback from my tutor and from my peer group. 

When discussing my artefact with my tutor two key points were highlighted that helped me to improve the design of the artefact and to consider for future modification:

  1. The importance not to ambush the students with the task without providing them the framework with which to complete the task. Exploring this key data together within our wider social contexts is important for safeguarding.
  2. All choices of examples are an opportunity to interrogate their place and my position in presenting them, and whether to present them at all.

In a peer group session I demonstrated my artefact. The following comments and questions were raised, helping to guide the development of my concept:

  • “Are the choices that you have made for examples reflective of the audience you are presenting to, in terms of diversity, or are they personal choices?”  
  • “It’ll be really interesting to see what they come back with”
  • “Have you considering raising the question of what isn’t represented in your choices? Why not include examples that aren’t representative of you?”
  • “Consider the structural hierarchies of storytelling, how we prioritise and present stories. These are functional within industry and have to be known about (the canon), but works to introduce the problems that exist with these canons”

I intend to engage more broadly with my choices of examples and their histories in the context of positionality/intersectionality throughout my teaching. Every choice is an opportunity for exploration of these issues. 

Whilst we cannot ignore the cannon, we must continually interrogate this and reposition it in the context of the contemporary world and its social and individual identities. Moreover, as creators we are often producing for an unknown audience; providing the means to create that audience as an extension of ourselves and the groups we work within, by exploring my choice processes as a teacher, gives insight into how our choices can be perceived and received. This engages the vulnerability of both teacher and student and through led discussion creates a scaffolding of vocabulary with which to investigate these issues.  

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aziz, Razia – Feminism and the challenge of racism, Deviance or difference? Routeledge, 1997

Delgado, Richard and Stefancic, Jean – Critical Race Theory, An Introduction. New York University Press, 2001

Freire, Paulo – Pedagogy of the Oppressed – New York : Continuum, 2000.

Hahn Tapper, Aaron. J – A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality and Empowerment – Conflict Resolution Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 4, Summer 2013. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com)

Hooks, Bell – Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom – New York: Routledge, 1994

Hooks. Bell – All about Love: New Visions – New York, Harper Perennial, 2001

Macfarlane, Bruce – Teaching with Integrity : The Ethics of Higher Education Practice – Taylor & Francis Group, 2003 

Categories
Blog Task Three - Race Inclusive Practices

Blog Task Three – Race

  • Shades of Noir –  “In Conversation with Khaleb Brooks: Exploring Blackness, Transness and Collective Memory” by Jess Wan

I read the interview “In Conversation with Khaleb Brooks: Exploring Blackness, Transness and Collective Memory” by Jess Wan. Brooks communicates beautifully the complicated structures at play when we deal with our own sense of identity. They struggle with the use of identity as means to succeed in the world form a particular perspective, since the identity one needs to wear can at times be prescribed for them.  

“For all of us, especially the millennial generation, we exist in these digital spaces where we have to present ourselves in a way to attain success. And it’s almost like what boxes do I check? When thinking about myself as a black trans person, it’s not just about success, but about positioning my identity as a means of survival…”

“…this work was about shifting that gaze and allowing myself to not exist in this space of projected performativity and understand vulnerability as a radical act.”

The story of the design of one’s identity is always set against the authenticity of lived experience. One being socially assigned to a person or to one’s self, another being the storytelling through prescribed signifiers or singular experiences.  

“I never thought being an artist was possible because I didn’t see that representation happening.”

Representation is a key part of this experience; Brooks talks of observing a world in which they never see ‘themselves’ and so block that possibility in their thinking. This made me think of how such small experiences of seeing someone ‘like you’ in any position already creates a space of possibility, or impossibility through the absence of this presence. 

“Recognising individual struggles during migration instead of those news headlines of 10,000 Africans drowning in the Mediterranean Sea is a step forward to decolonisation.”

The humanising effect of individuality. As often has happened in these blogposts, the overarching theme of storytelling emerges. The power of the story of the individual and how it connects to shared struggles is where the humanising occurs, not in the collective group, but in how we each relate to this group from our own perspectives.  

 “I really, really hope we can move away from digital spaces and focus on building a community around us to find healing and to understand ourselves, our identities and how they mesh and the dynamics that are created between them.”

  • “A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment”

“arguments maintain that if an intergroup encounter is superficial, the interaction will at best be problematic and at worst will leave the two groups in a state of poorer relations than before the contact took place, thus perpetuating the status quo of power relations between the groups such that the subordinate group prior to the interaction will have its subordinateness reinforced (Amir 1969; Jackson 1993)”

Hahn Tapper, exploring the ‘contact hypothesis’ in relation to power dynamics and the pitfalls of such group exercises, made me think about the difference of the approaches through individual identity and social identities. Looking inward and looking outward. In thinking about the power dynamics of a group I had not considered this difference and how powerful this way of looking together can be. To observe social identities together is a space where there is an outer, shared space, to observe being part of. Individual identity is a much more potentially isolating direction of observation. This made me reflect on my earlier post in relation to the mode of storytelling for the individual. Do we tell our stories of ourselves through the lens of social identities, or without? Is this even possible?

“individuals have group identities that they choose, as well as group identities that are imposed on them. People-to-people interactions exist within this context. In fact, says SIT, participants’ behaviour is shaped more by their collective identities than personal identities.”

  • Ted Talk “Witness Unconscious Bias”

Similarly to how Professor Shirley Ann Tate explored the nature of ‘unconscious bias’, Josephine Kwhali repositions the term in this video as an excuse for behaviour rather than a solution or process to examine oppression. The term is so very problematic as it fixes a position of naivety in such a way that a learning or changing process is deemed not possible by definition. Naivety may have been existent, and this was a problem, but the discomfort with the term exhibited by Kwhali is so justified considering where and when we are. The fact that this term is still used in training programmes in workplaces shows what a failure it has been as a concept, excusing behaviour rather than calling it out. 

  • “Retention and Attainment in the Disciplines: Art and Design”

“Art and Design is one of the disciplines with the highest percentages of students leaving with no award (6%) with a disproportionate difference between White students (6%) and Black student groups (Black British Caribbean 9%, Black or Black British African 13%, other Black backgrounds 10%)”

“Certain kinds of art can only be decoded, and appreciated by those who have been taught how to decode them (Bourdieu, 1984). The cultural capital of the working classes, and certain ethnic groups, is devalued and delegitimised (Bourdieu, 1984). (Burke and Mcmanus 2012, p. 21)”

These two points led me to consider how the environment of the student cohort itself could contribute to students feeling lost or not welcome in the first instance.  

My provocation or question based on these two revelations is, could there not be more measures put in place in the designing of our cohorts so as to create a welcoming environment for all who may wish to gain access. Considering that the vast majority of students accepted onto courses are white and from the ‘middle-class’, representation within the cohort will be less diverse and dynamic no matter what is reflected in staffing. Since Brexit, the ‘international’ reflection of the student cohort has become even less diverse, with fewer numbers arriving from Europe. But there is a pre-existing problem in admissions as they are utilizing the appreciation of potential in prospective students through a lens of decoding embroiled in the precedent of the canon. This means that prospective ‘working class’ students are still disadvantaged in this process. Could there not be a quota or cap put in place in admissions, in terms of educational background, to guarantee a percentage of non-privately educated students?      

  • Terms of Reference – Shades of Noir – “To White Academia” by Tiffany Webster

I read the article “To White Academia” by Tiffany Webster and thought about the reflection of the writer on the possible identity of the interviewee. This led me to consider the relevance of anonymity within the context of the confessional approach of the interview. The ‘confession’ as a construct has been something I have thought about a lot throughout this module. At times a confession is what seems to be required; an admission of complicity at least. Would the performance of the interviewee have been different if their identity was known? Perhaps more political? Does confessing to complicity or worse unburden the confessor of their sins? 

These are potentially questions of personal identity construction through storytelling devices. The confessional is one such device, and an interesting one in relation to anonymity. Is the performance of confession rendered inevitably political if the identity of the confessor is known?  

Categories
Blog Task Two - Faith Inclusive Practices

Shades of Noir – Faith

Social Justice / Buddhism / Queerness

I read the article by Tiffany Webster, ‘Social Justice / Buddhism / Queerness’. What strikes me in this text is the consideration of paradoxes, and this led me to reflect on my position in relation to these in the context of ‘whiteness’.

“Race is the ultimate delusion in that it both does and does not exist in reality”

I think that when we speak about ‘whiteness’ and ‘white fragility’, it easy to simplify these positions as a feeling of discomfort speaking about issues of race because of a wrangling, with, or without, guilt. But I feel that, as is mirrored in the comments around capitalism and Buddhism I the article, this concept has more to do with paradoxical values surrounding recognition. It is of course right that injustice must be recognised and corrected, but in relation to identity this can be problematic as it takes a political act of identity, and therefore a confirmation of difference. When the desire is to eradicate difference, or to confirm the non-existence of ‘race’, or ‘gender’, or ‘sexuality’, the act potentially obliterates the intention/desire. “Liberation is a process”, and therefore the conversation cannot be one that ends, but that leads us away from difference eventually. These are just thoughts that come to mind in considering my own positionality in the context of potential inaction for fear of confirmation of the very difference we wish to eradicate. In my own experience, I prefer to think of a ‘paralysis’ as more fitting than ‘fragility’, caused by the paradoxical nature of what is faced in identity confirmation.

These paradoxes are useful to explore, however, as they deepen the understanding of how positionality interacts with causes. A way this concept could be explored with students in my teaching practice would be through storytelling workshops. I could conceive of a writing exercise where students describe themselves through positionality statements and then are asked to write similar statements for another member of the group. A discussion of what different feelings these two processes produce would be an interesting way of considering the paradoxes of identity and positionality and their relevance to modes of storytelling.     

Categories
Blog Task Two - Faith Inclusive Practices

Kwame Anthony Appiah – Reith Lecture

I found this lecture fascinating in the context of storytelling; in how we tell our own stories about ourselves (to ourselves and to the world) and how we tell the stories of others to ourselves through intersecting and divergent identity signifiers. Appiah talks of personal and social identity in a way that reminded me of the question posed in the essay by Razia Aziz “Feminism and the challenge of racism” from Session Two: “What is identity for?” In Aziz’s context, this question is posed in relation to the political act of identity. In the context of this lecture, I have reflected on the more personal use of the story of identity in understanding who I am, or rather, where I come from.  

The question “Where are you from?” is one that, whilst commonplace and seemingly innocuous, carries with it an othering quality, as Appiah relates early in the lecture. It presupposes the answer: ‘not from around here’. I had my own experiences of this growing up. Whilst I looked like most of the people around me where I was raised, I never sounded like any of the children at my school. Nor did I sound like members of my mother’s family in London. My mother, the eldest child in her family, had received elocution lessons at a school she was sent to as a teenager, whereas her many siblings had not. In a similar act of adaptation, my father’s father had taught himself to speak “properly” (as he saw it) by listening to voices on the radio, to improve his chances at being accepted into a Grammar School, and so passed on to my father not the accent of his parents, but one that was acquired. The result of these adaptations for my sisters and I is an accent that is an amalgam, somewhat unplaceable, not being one thing or another and not mirroring voices of our local surroundings or wider family and has therefore been a voice perpetually out of place, be it with peers growing up, or family members who have distinct regional accents.

My point in telling the mini biography of my voice relates to how I feel about growing up in a non-religious family, and the generational story of this. ‘Atheist’ or ‘Agnostic’ are not terms that I feel comfortable with in describing myself, as they simplify the generational story behind my religious positionality. I feel deeply connected to the story of my grandparents’ relationship, for example; the societal difficulties encountered at the time and their own personal connections with religion. My grandfather was a self-proclaimed Agnostic from a Protestant family, my grandmother a devout Catholic with a worldview that was radically liberal for her generation. Their different interpretations of where they come from religiously have always affected me in my own understanding of my relationship to religion and faith. These stories are an important part of my story and cannot be encompassed by a term such as ‘Atheist’, even though I would say that I am not a believer.

These stories, of why I grew up sounding a certain way, and how my relationship to faith was formed as a child, involve many characters and interpretations. They are stories retold and adapted. Appiah says, “The story of texts, is the story of readers and their interpretations”.

In the context of my work as a lecturer with performance students, storytelling in the context of identity could work well to explore questions of one’s own positionality, whilst also considering how a character is represented through storytelling. This approach to identity through the multiplicity of storytelling could be a very effective introduction to both character development and storytelling through character, in relation to identity and to change, with students developing concepts for performance projects. Perhaps a storytelling workshop (‘How did I get here?’) where the multiplicity of backgrounds and their formations is shared and explored together in a group.

Categories
Blog Task Two - Faith Inclusive Practices

‘Religion In Britain: Challenges for Higher Education’ (Modood & Calhoun, 2015)

I looked at the headings ‘Multiculturalism’, ‘The ‘Vaguely Christian’ UK’, and ‘Religion and knowledge of religion in UK universities’. Below are some reflections on my reading of these articles with a bit of a jumble of learnings and provocations that I reflected upon as a whole but have divided under the three headings.

Multiculturalism

“…some pro-diversity advocates are reluctant to extend multiculturalism to include religious groups. One argument is that ‘woman’, ‘Black’ and ‘gay’ are ascribed, involuntary identities while being, say, a Muslim is about chosen beliefs, and that Muslims therefore need or ought to have less legal protection than the other kinds of identities.”

Calhoun raises the fascinating issue of choice in his essay. This interests me in terms of the direction of the individual and societal gaze in relation to identity. How one sees oneself and how society decides is the correct way to see the identities of other selves, are distinct and often opposing movements which are plural and in flux, not fixed positions. How we decide as to how society should see people works in tandem with the individual who chooses to be seen a certain way, but is also at odds with historical societal ‘norms’ that often put people, particularly older generations, in a position of trying to keep up with changes, and is inevitably wrong in certain cases of identities that choose not to be seen in the same way as that which is agreed upon. This tends to lead to further categorisations, or sub-categorisations, rather than to the appreciation of the fluid and plural nature of self. This interests me in the context of capitalism and a kind of market approach to identity. This brought to mind a passage in ‘Saint Paul, The Foundation of Universalism’ by Alan Badiou where he considers what “identitarian and communitarian categories have to do with truth procedures”. Badiou writes, “The contemporary world is thus doubly hostile to truth procedures. This hostility betrays itself though nominal occlusions: where the name of a truth procedure should obtain, another, which represses it, holds sway. The name “culture” comes to obliterate that of “art.” The word “technology” obliterates the word “science.” The word “management” obliterates the word “politics.” The word “sexuality” obliterates love.” I am very interested in exploring further the concept of capitalism within the framework of identity categories and positionality.

On the subject of agency/choice Calhoun writes, “No one chooses to be or not to be born into a Muslim family. Similarly, no one chooses to be born into a society where to look like a Muslim or to be a Muslim creates suspicion, hostility, or failure to get the job you applied for. Of course, how Muslims respond to these circumstances will vary. Some will organise resistance, while others will try to stop looking like Muslims (the equivalent of ‘passing’ for white); some will build an ideology out of their subordination, others will not, just as a woman can choose to be a feminist or not.” The question for me here is: is it a choice to identify a person as “white”, or “black”, or to decide to be identified as “white” or “black”, or a “woman”, or “gay”? Whilst the argument can obviously be made that these are empirical facts, so are many other categorical ‘attributes’ that make up a person that both self and society do not deem key identifiers (Right-handed? Brown eyes?) Again, this is for obvious historical and political reasons (and is not meant as a provocation against the recognition of these identifiers), but these reasons do not deflect from the fact that our decisions to categorise identity by these, ever increasing, group of categories, and not by others, is a choice that we all make, individually and collectively. This comes back to the question posed by Razia Aziz of ‘what is identity for?’

 

The ‘vaguely Christian’ UK

Whilst aware of the historical ‘Christian-ness’ of the UK countries, I had not fully considered the range of intersectional and prominence of certain groups within this. ‘Christian’ in my limited familial world of religious inheritance is neatly divided between Catholic and Protestant. This is probably true for many British of my generation who identify as non-religious. Other groups of the multicultural state are identified by their religious denomination (Sikh, Muslim, Hindi, Jewish, Buddhist, etc). Being a long time Hackney dweller, the visibility of Pentecostal and Evangelical communities is very apparent. However, these groups tend to be identified as ‘Black’ communities, rather than by their faith, such as their ‘Hasidic’ neighbours in Stamford Hill. I had always considered the ‘Vaguely Christian’ concept of the UK to be down to the historical attachment of the large proportion of British communities who are basically non-religious, or at least non-practicing ‘Christians’. What does this mean for our conception of faith as an identifier, and of intersectionality more general, who one identifying category so deeply overshadows another?

Religion and knowledge of religion in UK universities

“The Church of England has chaplains at nearly every English university.”

I found this fact surprising, although, upon reflection, realised that I had always noticed the presence of the chaplaincy at the universities I have either attended or worked at. Usually merely the occasional sighting of a marked door, whilst never knowing exactly who the Chaplain is or what they do. Such is the ubiquity of background Christianity in my experiences (at primary school we were all made to ‘pray’ together daily in assembly, even though the school was secular) that I think little of this and do not question it.

“Even when delivered in entirely secular ways, this is still often termed ‘pastoral care’ in UK universities; chaplains are important to it, and academics offer less than they once did.”

This quote stood out to me as reflective of my own experiences with students as both a technician and, more recently, as a lecturer. The space for ‘pastoral care’ seems to have become far more spread, away from academics, into unofficial areas (such as workshop technicians, with whom some students spend a great deal more time than with academics, and who are not involved in assessment, so tend to be more approachable to students). The recognition of the need for this type of support, and the unrecognised provision of it, is potentially problematic in the sense that those who provide it should be recognised for it, but more importantly should be properly prepared for it and able to feed back to the university in relation to this provision. The concept of ‘religious literacy’ should be encouraged and provided for all those who come into regular contact with students and not held solely by ‘religious specialists’ (from a single religious background).

Categories
Blog Task Two - Faith Inclusive Practices

UAL Website – Religion, belief and faith identities in learning and teaching

Browsing this excellent collection of resources made me consider the concept of the archive in relation to moving viewpoints and changing conversations around identity and inclusivity. Some of the articles are over ten years old and it made me try to imagine how I might have responded to them at the time of publication. Had anything changed about me? I read the article by Alister Sooke (Does Modern Art Hate Religion?) and thought about how, in the context of faith and art, this is an excellent starting point in considering the changing relationships between and readings of art and faith. Being nearly ten years old the article is already behind so many key events of recent years. How does this affect our reading of such resources?

I feel that much like the function of our blogposts here, encouraging students to consider the historical legacy of artefacts and their changing relevance could be an interesting use of, or approach to, the blog. To think about what is relevant and how that has shifted in relation to a similar blogging activity could create an interesting resource for future cohorts. This could encourage engagement with the subject, but also develop the research sensibilities of a group in the action of adding to and responding to the archive.

I particularly like the Pen Portraits case study as an activity as a means of ‘breaking the ice’. In the context of legacy as noted above, perhaps a publication project could be included, as an agreed upon public version of blog entries, so that later years could consider the answers of students that preceded them?  

Categories
Inclusive Practices

Blogging Task One – Disability

Below are my responses and reflections after engaging with the resources explored for this task. While in places I have made overtly specific reflections to individual resources, elsewhere there is some crossover in those where I have felt that key issues being explored relate to one another, and so come under the heading of those key issues.


1. Film by Christine Sun Kim

The film and work of Christine Sun Kim fascinate me both as a practitioner and as a lecturer. I have worked for many years with a visually impaired artist and filmmaker whose work often explores the sonic and haptic relationships between objects, and with film itself (https://www.aaronmcpeake.com/projects/films.html). Most of the contemporary work revolves around haptic and sonic experiences of bronze cast objects, whilst our first film project traced the experiences of the artist returning to a space after twenty years of optic degeneration (‘A Sense of the World – The Blind Traveller’). These experiences collaborating and realising concepts have pushed me to always be searching for explorative ways of interacting with the use of sound and image, often involving much ‘collecting’ through recordings. The issue of loss is a key component to the work I cite, whereas Christine’s film looks much more precisely at the issue of the ownership of sensory materials.

Christine’s utilises various conventions in filmmaking to explore the subject of the film (Christine’s practice as an artist), blending documentary tropes with cinematic language that immerses the viewer in the overarching context of the experience of sound. The use of the traditional constructs of film language works to explore the assumptions and conventions that we all experience and respond to as audiences of films, without perhaps considering how or why this is employed. By starting the first two minutes as though it could be the opening to a fictional short film drama, the audience is invited to try to work out what is happening; who is this person? What is this person doing?

The film begins with references to the technology we will see deployed later, as Christine prepares to leave the apartment. The sounds grow in volume and seems to distort the image as Christine applies make-up whilst looking in the mirror. This soundscape continues to grow and develop into other sound elements from outside as Christine leaves the apartment and takes recordings with a microphone of the street. Christine introduces to the camera after two minutes as the sounds from the street scene slowly subside and the audience have the first confirmation that they are watching a documentary. The use of sound during the interview elements focusses on the movement and interactive contact of Christine’s hands as she signs for the camera/interviewer. This is interspersed with the injections of sound and ‘feedback’ from the sound recordings employed to drive the structures and circuits in the installations. The subtitles translating these movements into text on the screen are used in the traditional documentary sense, remaining during the cutaways that now make up the construct of the remainder of the film; the interview interspersed with footage of Christine engaging with the installation. Usually, the use of this would be in tandem with a voice recording that would persist during the cutaway sections, and the absence of this ‘voice’ as a recognisable audio recording during these sequences draws attention to how the language of film itself can act to exclude a mode of communication from those conventions. We see medium close-up shots of Christine’s hands signing, to draw this attention into sharper focus.

This use of traditional film constructs is a really engaging way of exploring film genre and style; all are minutely subverted as they are presented as one thing and represent another. I would use this film as an object to explore with students’ concepts around film genre and style, and around the ownership of the sensory experiences of film.


2. UAL Disability and Dyslexia Pages – Disability awareness through engagement with the world we build

As mentioned above, I have worked closely with visually impaired artist/filmmaker over the past twenty years, but I also worked closely with Claudette Davis-Bonnick in documenting her research on ‘Understanding Visual Impairments’ (https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people). Claudette states how it is not the person with the disability that people are challenged with, but with understanding the disability. Claudette’s work has extensively explored barriers to learning in a practical context within pattern-cutting, but also, much as Christine Sun Kim’s film does, questions issues of ownership, specifically the assumption that beauty is an ocular experience. Through this relationship and consequent relationships, I have learned how diverse visual impairments can be; between and amongst those born without sight, and between and amongst those with degenerative disorders at their various stages. But also, the variety of conditions that are far less extreme, but equally problematic within the context of a world that is not built with these conditions in mind. These can include issues with colour, low or high levels of light, or even relating to how the person experiences sound visually. As the UAL Disability Pages video “The Social Model of Disability at UAL” states: “We are not disabled by our individual differences we are disabled by barriers in the world around us.” The person with the condition is often identified as needing assistance in the world, as though the world is not a place for them and therefore it is they who need to adapt and develop methodologies of coping with an environment in which they do not belong. This is rather than considering the world itself, built by us, as needing to adapt or be built better, in a more inclusive way. Such measures could be considered a hindrance to those, ‘able-bodied’, who feel they have no need to adapt. This would be an extremely uncritical position; considering that how things are have always been so, and have not in fact been assembled by us. Variety in methodologies is an invaluable context within which to learn critically. This is how we learn more about the ‘technologies’ around us, within the languages of disciplines and the construction of environments. We all adapt to these, none of them are ‘natural’, but constructs that we are participants in confirming and repeating/replicating. Questioning the conventions and practices that we are learning within, through their construction and how we all respond differently to them, provides a richer and more critical capacity for understanding within our own practices/learning.

My own experiences have profoundly affected the development of my theoretical understanding of sound in film, as a practitioner and lecturer, but also the technicality of such elements as a technician for large theatres or lecture halls. I remember an incident in a lecture hall at UAL where the lecturer at the front of the theatre did the common thing of rejecting the use of the microphone offered to them (people don’t like technology they don’t regularly use) and shouting out to the room “you can all hear me without this can’t you?”, to which the room generally responded in murmuring affirmation. Except for someone sat next to me who had not heard this and was moreover dependent on the microphone being used to tune into this signal with their hearing aid. I quietly explained this to the speaker aside and resolved the situation, but my initial annoyance came before noticing the student in need of the signal, because I often have problems with this attitude as a filmmaker for such events – when people discard the microphone, I lose the sound for my recording! I reference this experience because it exemplifies a common instinct people can have to reject what they don’t understand or trust. I used this knowledge in my approach to teaching technicians during the pandemic, many of whom understandably had great reservations about the task they were faced with.

To develop this, teaching technicians and lecturers the fundamentals of using certain technologies for making films within their practice could open up this space in relation to sound and image in particular and draw attention, through an alternative lens, to questions around why we use specific technologies and encourage engagement with what they do and also with how they work. The above example in the lecture hall, where ignorance around the use of a piece of ‘tech’ came from the leader of the room exemplifies an all-too-common issue of engagement with the environment and tools around us. The dismissal of the ‘tech stuff’ in this manner only works to cement disengagement from those tools that build our environments.

My short-term workshops with technicians learning to make videos during the pandemic could act as a much more permanent way of engaging with this world and understanding how much people can depend on them.


3. Representation/experience as a key tool for change in perception

When reading the #DisabilityTooWhite article/interview with Vilissa Thompson, I thought about the profound impact my work on outreach projects with LCF had upon my appreciation of representation and the privilege of empirical experiences in formative years. During time spent working on documenting projects lead by Carole Morrison I gained my first glimpses of what representation and experience can mean for a young person considering their first steps into adulthood and perhaps further education. The issue of representation is ever more divergent in the context of intersectionality. However, an area that the college has effectively targeted and that I have experience of is in outreach programmes for secondary school aged students where the participants are selected who would be, if they chose to do so, the first member of their family to go to university. This is a diverse group, linked by an apprehension that comes with not knowing. My experiences working with Carole on these projects opened my eyes to how powerful being able to see yourself in an environment that is alien to you and that you are unable to gain advice about from someone close who has experience of it. Working with a group of lecturers and technicians in the college for a series of workshops was demonstrably impacting the confidence of those young people involved. I had the privilege of interviewing the students and heard such a range of feelings about the programme, some who said they were now certain that university was a path they wanted to follow, some who were certain that this was not, and some that were suddenly interested in various other options that now appeared available to them. The consistent element in their responses to my questions was confidence. Knowing about a space and feeling confident about that knowledge proved to be extremely powerful and transformative. This made me consider the privilege of my own experiences at a similar age of things such as being taken to the theatre, an environment that is unique and therefore can seem somewhat daunting to those who have not experienced it. People worry about what to wear, how to behave, and without answers to these questions through experience, will lack confidence about perhaps a first experience of this.

These interventions at an early age can be extremely impactful, as can seeing those ‘like me’ represented in the world around you. However, this could be extended beyond those formative years. The assumption that those who arrive at university are comfortable there would be a mistake and we should continue to provide such experiences in spaces that are perhaps not natural places of feeling comfortable for students.

In terms of representation in the context of my teaching in film theory/history, I ask students to present a film that means something to them – this can be as simple as ‘I love it’ – as a first step to how to explore film critically. I might consider that instead two choices are made; one film in which the student feels they are represented, and one film in which they feel they are not. This extension of this exercise could act as an introduction to concepts of representation, but also an exploration of how easy or difficult this element of the task is for students from various backgrounds. This could be problematic depending on the diversity of the cohort and would need to be given context.


4. Invisibility

Whilst reading about the experiences and issues faced by Khairani Barokka during the touring of the solo deaf-accessible show, I reflected on the concept of invisibility and how this had impacted on my considerations around working with students online and in person, and what is made more or less acute in each context. This relates closely to my reflections on another article from the final resource: ‘Terms of Reference Journal from Shades of Noir (SoN) around Disability – ‘Key Term Video: Social Anxiety’ by Iga Sokolowska’.

Through my own personal experiences, and those of family members, with Anxiety, I have learned how invisible conditions can be, hidden sometimes through what is wrongly identified as “shyness”, or alternatively through the construction of a persona that acts to hide what is happening internally. During teaching online-only during lockdown, my experiences of teaching to a literally invisible group on Collaborate were a great challenge to my own feelings of anxiety about teaching in a new context. However, the regular one-to-one tutorials that followed helped me to feel closer to this group of students whom I would never meet and reassured me that they were indeed there and listening. These personal interactions lead to a couple of interventions where a student was struggling to cope and needed a private space to consult with me on the problem they were facing. This made me consider deeply those who had perhaps not had the confidence to do this, certainly not in front of the classroom, but even in private.

The issue of intersectionality within the context of disability is extremely diverse and always particular to the individual experience. However, the method of storytelling through the article by Khairani Barokka is a powerful tool in engaging with these specific experiences, but also in the wider contextual multiplicity of such experiences. In the classroom, engaging with the learner as an individual who has stories to tell of specific experiences could be an effective method, like issues explored earlier in the context of representation, whereby through showing vulnerability and authenticity we can engage and embolden those with us who may not have felt confident about their own situation. I try to engage students with stories of my mistakes and failures, my fears, and anxieties, during my professional and student career, to create a generous and human environment that is perhaps more open for them to share if they are struggling. This has not ever been formally researched but is something I tend to do naturally to try break down the concept of the ‘expert’ in the room with the ‘learner’.

Personal storytelling could be the method employed more concretely in the classroom, as a means of looking at the dramaturgy of story building in film, but also as a way of the group learning more about their perceptions of each other.

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Theories, Policies and Practices

Cinematic Etymology and Ambiguous Learning Outcomes

Is an etymological approach helpful in teaching practice/theory, ultimately as a means of making through experimentation?

As a method of demystifying the language of academia and of film practice, I teach film conventions through a series of first instances in cinematic technological history. This method does two things: Firstly, it helps to deliver to the students a knowledge of how these conventions, of which we are all versed, albeit unknowingly, came to be confirmed through experimentation and innovation, in technologies either pertaining to film production, or presentation, often working against an existing convention of the day. Secondly to draw attention to the simplicity of the technologies, which at first might seem quite specialist, but haven’t changed much in their most basic conceptual sense, since the first days of the art form.

For many years I worked as a film projectionist and often forget what a magical world the booth was for most people who had only ever experienced cinema from the audience point of view. In developing my lecture series in film for Costume Design students I have revisited the things that made most impression on me in my early days in this world. The separation of sound and image made me investigate this concept more intently, and with awe at the ingenuity of the technologies themselves. This intrigue is what I have tried to replicate for students who, while trying to teach film theory and practice to, must engage on some level with the technologies that make any of it possible.

My favourite examples of this are the friendly competition between Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin in trying to make a feature film with the fewest title cards. Such cards were quickly adopted in the silent movie era, once many other conventions had already been established (such as continuity editing), as a means of relaying information or dialogue to the audience in the absence of sound. During the 1920s the average number of title cards used in a feature film was 250, Keaton and Chaplin competed around the 40-50 mark. The reason I love this is that the answer to the problem is obviously the invention of sound recording and presentation in cinemas. However, until this came, the true innovators pushed against the constraints of their situation, creating in the process a whole new set of conventions that are still employed within cinema today. Often when working with students they constraints they are under, perhaps financially or practically, can seem like a hindrance to their vision. I am trying to show them that it is these very constraints that the most impressive and long-lasting innovations arise from.

This has been an experimental approach to try to get various elemental teachings across to a group of students quickly, while also attempting to inspire.

This etymological approach is also intended to push the student away from the initial preconceived and frequently limited scope of their idea of films and filmmaking. By thinking about how we got here (to the conventions we understand but struggle to perceive and articulate), we can open all kinds of new direction of travel. Often the student will have what they see as ‘simple tools’ available to them. These are invariably miraculous items, such as a smartphone or laptop, and reassessing them as such can prove hugely valuable.

Since I am not overly knowledgeable about the craft of Costume Design, I cannot assess the technical progress students make in this area. Moreover, in the skills I am teaching them I am aware that the limited time I have working with them is not enough to train them fully in any of the technical skills within filmmaking in way that it would be fair to assess true technical competency in each. However, the point of the process is to develop a way of looking at a concept in filmmaking terms and to use this new ‘vision’ to creatively demonstrate their final project, reassess their concept at this late stage and make adjustments, and to develop a feeling of a better understanding within a field that many of them may one day work as part of the collaboration. How do we assess this when the ‘outcome’ is unknown? I do not want to proscribe how the students make their films, I want to be surprised by their approach and by their reading of the methods I have taught. “In terms of meaningfulness, they equate to the notion of ‘understanding’, a cognitive term which is regarded as too complex and which should be substituted by other, more measurable, terms such as, ‘explain’, ‘analyse’, etc. Another drawback in the use for these terms, acknowledged by Biggs (2003), is that they are regarded as ‘divergent’ and as such do not invite one appropriate answer but a range of possibilities.” (Allen Davies – Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?)

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Theories, Policies and Practices

Values and Implementation

In this seminar the question was posed: What value/s in Art & Design education?

In our groups we discussed this question, first in a general sense, and later, after a discussion with the wider group, how we might implement these values.

What struck me was the commonality and ubiquity of certain responses as we moved around the room, all in line with the policies surrounding concepts of inclusivity and equality. I believe that these are deeply important societal and institutional structural issues, however the direction of these questions and answers tended to lead to an observation and reaction method of thinking (the teacher observing the student and responding to what they see as the positionality of the individuals before them). I believe this can be counterproductive, particularly for a teacher who is maybe uncomfortable with their own positionality within this issue. Our group discussed extensively the subtleties of the terms used, how problematic certain terms, such as decolonisation, can be. I was reminded of issues raised in readings about metaphysics, and the abstract rabbit-holes they have drawn me into in the past. But also of cases, relayed by students offended by being singled out for their ‘diversity’ and subsequently being treated differently.

In my own practice as a lecturer, I have sometimes feared that examples I share with my students are not ‘inclusive’, and have then considered what this means? The examples I share with students tend to resonate with me and my journey as a practitioner or academic, and I always posit them as such. I have resisted the feeling that I should investigate my students’ backgrounds and come up with examples that resonate with them based on where they are from and what they might mean to mean through a superficial understanding that I would be capable of doing for each of them. Instead, I try to imbue a collaborative approach to this and have been inspired by my experiences in the object-based microteaching sessions where my tutor group shared such a diverse set of objects and approaches to teaching. This is a means of levelling through access to an activity, perhaps first performed by a tutor in presenting to the group and then inviting the students to do the same with their own examples. I feel this approach allows me to maintain authenticity in who I am presenting to my students, which is so important if I want them to respond and learn with me. If I present something that feels inauthentic, or shoehorned, the dynamic of the group can be poisoned by this as it goes in the opposite direction of travel to that which the implementation of certain values wishes us to travel. “…how to pass from ‘limited sympathy’ to an ‘extended generosity’, how to stretch passions and give them an extension they don’t have on their own … how [to] create institutions that force passions to go beyond their partialities and form moral, judicial, political sentiments (for example, the feeling of justice).” (Deleuze – Pure Immanence)

However, working together to unpack these terms (we opted for “generosity” in place of “inclusivity”, as this put the emphasis on the teacher rather than on the student) we can help to understand what we do in trying to interpret values more generally, and what it might mean to try to enforce implementation of a value at all.

We ended up with a short amount of time to explore ‘sustainability” in this way. While this was limited, I feel it was a successful example of the many different interpretations of various terminology, and how the specific and general must be explored fully and continuously if we are truly to engage with the underlying concepts. The most interesting anecdotal experiences I have had recently regarding “sustainability” have been in interviewing students on a couple of different BA courses. One had clearly received a superficial guidance in how to incorporate “sustainability” into their projects, into their business model, which unfortunately came across as ‘greenwashing’ to me. The other examples on another course seemed to have had no direct schooling in this term, yet had all, in one way or another, thought deeply about their future career paths and what the market in which they would be situated might look like in the next ten years. The latter were truly inspiring conversations with students who had clearly come to certain understandings on their own through very close attention to their disciplines and where they are situated.

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Theories, Policies and Practices

Peer Observation – Experiences

My initial apprehension about the prospect of the peer observation element of the PGCert was entirely ego-based; imposter syndrome as a new lecturer can be intense when surrounded by many experienced professionals with years of practice behind them. I arranged to meet with the colleague I had been paired with soon after the session to ‘break the ice’. The exchange that followed helped dispel these fears as we were both feeling very similarly nervous about this and both were relatively new to teaching, despite having many years of experience in our relative disciplines. The fact that the disciplines we teach are so different to each other’s, and relatively unknown to us respectively, helped us to relax about the process and focus on the teaching elements rather than the subject itself. I can imagine the actual observation I performed would have been trickier had I been observing someone teach in my own discipline.

The experience of the observation of my own lecture was still somewhat nerve wracking as it happened to be the first session that I was teaching in a live context with the students, as opposed to the online setting that I had been limited to until then and was therefore the first instance in which I was meeting the students face-to-face. However, knowing that the observer would be present did not greatly affect the approach I took; I was worried that I would adjust my method to incorporate new elements that would ‘perform’ teaching for the PGCert purposes, rather than give an authentic representation of what I do when I teach. I was very pleased to find this did not occur at all. Since my students are all new to the subject I am teaching, and the observer was also not knowledgeable about my subject, helped align the sense of observation, as I am always aware that the students are always observing my practice to some extent. I think my experience as observer a couple of weeks later was similar in this regard.

The feedback I received contained comments and questions that were very helpful, raising structural issues that I had been aware of and helped me to focus on very practical steps I could take to address these.

The observation by my tutor was somewhat different as limited availability and so had to be provided as a recorded session. Despite feeling comfortable with him personally, this felt much more like a potential ‘evaluation’, due to the context of his ‘discipline being teaching itself, and involved the interesting difference in feeling about being observed ‘live’ and handing over a recording of oneself. These fears were completely dispelled and while offering structural and organisational suggestions, offered a reflection on elements of my teaching that were not so fully explored in the previous observation. Focus was given to the passionate knowledge conveyed and reminded me of feedback I had received two years prior to a document I had produced as a guide to filmmaking. This re-focussing on the more personality-based elements of teaching gave me a lift that I needed at that moment in my own current course of study and reminded me of why I enjoy teaching what I teach. The balance between these two experiences have helped me to reflect more fully on what I need to do more of in practical terms and what I need to keep in mind about myself as sort of conduit for inspiration. The space peer observation offers as a way of guiding self-reflection has already proved to be extremely valuable and is something that I would be keen to repeat at regular junctures.

“Wanting to communicate a passion for a subject is a laudable goal. Indeed, it is a goal that attracts many to an academic career. Lecturers who fail to communicate their passion or commitment to their subject are unlikely to inspire their students. But, as Nelson and Watt (1999) point out, good teaching is about the successful combination of passion and reason or ‘passionate reason’.” (Macfarlane, B. 2004. Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice)

In the case studies we explored in the session on peer observation, the concept of charisma was one that I felt was not fully unpacked. While the issues with the ego of the observed in the case study was reflected in their own observation, conversations during the session about charisma in teaching tended to look at problems of identifying what charisma is, rather than championing passion and personality.

When developing video materials and approaches to use of video in my work as a technician for LCF, I have tried to look from the position of the learner who feels they know nothing of the subject they are asked to learn and who fear the technology involved. The resistance to technology from some academic colleagues during the pandemic has been sometimes frustrating, considering the successes I had experienced in this with technicians I had taught to make videos. This resistance seems to be associated with issues of ego when having to record performance, rather than abilities in engagement with technology. Charisma in this context is, I believe, misleading – I would rather talk about palpably ‘passionate reason’.

“Charisma is theorized as a mystical trait, one that is ineffable and irreducible, and therefore inimitable. The enigmatic account of charisma has discouraged communication scholars from undertaking any technical description of this phenomenon.”

https://www.academia.edu/30545768/Charisma_as_Rhetorical_Techne_Community_Organization_and_Alinskys_Radicals