Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the role that the HEI Art School plays in both normalising and resisting the standardisation of the artist/designer in the UK and reflect on the growing influence of systems of 'coercive accountability' (Shore and Wright 2000) such as REF, TEF and the NSS.

Paper long abstract:

In his Critique of Judgement (1790), Kant asserted that 'fine art is the art of genius' and further that, genius 'is the talent (natural endowment) which gives the rule to art. Since talent, as an innate productive faculty of the artist, belongs itself to nature, we may put it this way: Genius is the innate mental aptitude (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.' This Romantic and deterministic vision of the creative practitioner has a long shadow, one which is still being felt in contemporary British Art Schools wherein the pressure to identify and draw out the unique talents of an individual sits uncomfortably alongside the institutional drive for universal, homogenising assessment practices and funding metrics.

This paper employs an analytic autoethnographic approach in the study of the evolving role of the Art School in the production of both the 'artists' and 'art' of the future. The author is a 'full member' (Anderson 2010) of the group being studied, inasmuch as her first degree was in Fine Art and she has worked in HEI arts education for 20+ years. The paper will outline the lived experience of balancing institutional, policy-driven and logistical demands with the day-to-day challenges of teaching students from a range of backgrounds, with a range of abilities, with a wide range of expectations, and all with a view to preparing them for a world which has yet to be imagined into being.