After the three and a half weeks we spent in Chinese village of Wuzishen (Nanling forest), one of the outcomes is my proposal for architectural changes to the streets of ping-fang houses in which the retired forest workers live. These are set to be demolished in the next 3 years and tower blocks will be build to house the residents. However the ping-fangs are unique houses much loved by those who live in them, built in 1958 during Mao's 'great leap forward' they are set on communal streets that splits the sleeping area and lounge from the kitchens and bathrooms. This ensures constant to-ing and fro-ing. interaction with neighbors and a sense of community.   

The challenge is to create a far more holistic re-development scheme using the existing buildings that looks and smells like progress, modernises some of the very basic kitchens and bathrooms and attracts a younger generation to the housing, it should maintain the existing unique character and feel of the Ping-fangs. It would also need something to attract visitors, helping unite the division between the incoming tourist wealth (for the nature park) and the village.

Click here for a movie that outlines the proposal so far for Mr Chen from the Nanling eco-resort company who seemed interested in helping to build a prototype/ show flat.

Caption: discussing poposed architectural changes in the village market. 

I think this post will mark the start of my 'chronicles of a part time tutor' on the blog. Kicking the series off with my appearance at the Sheffield Hallam University annual degree show conference - 'What Price Autonomy?'
If art education was in crisis in 40 years ago in 1968, in crisis during Joseph Beuy's free university, in crisis when I left art school in 1999 and is still in crisis now, at what point do we all agree that it has failed, close down the art schools and spend our energies on something else? I spoke along-with writer JJ Charlesworth and artist Becky Shaw and a graduating student called Jade (who wore a fury wolf costume?). The organisers were fantastically motivated young Sheffield artists, inviting me in true style by emailing from Berlin about three days beforehand - which gave me with a good opportunity to test my improvisation skills on the day.

The Sheffield Hallam University are selling their airy, light, spacious, interesting, quirky suburban 1930's art department campus and moving the whole lot to the basement of a inner city modern tower block, no need for windows then? It seems and as JJ Charlesworth eloquently pointed out that basically art students are an expensive asset and their messy studios use more space per person that the average history student who can cram into a lecture theater/ library. This makes art students ripe for 'relocation' and their campuses great for redevelopment - moving only a few arty students and gaining maximum sq footage to cost benefit. After all university is a business that is run by managers and accountants, isn't it, and this is a great opportunity to raise revenue.

The tendency to run education on a financial basis, accepting students to bring in more fees, reallocating spaces, selling assets, creating part time contracts is going on all around the UK. I only hope it is done out of urgent necessity as it certainly is not helping an educational process that was already deemed 'in crisis' before it all began. We discussed the students rights and if their fee's justify them as 'customers', and if the language of commerce is useful or negative in this situation, or was it that they should simply be entitled to good education regardless of their buying power?

Given the widely accepted ineptitude of most institutions to set up a decent structure for their art students/ tutors, I did come out of the conference thinking that privatization and capitalistic models could hypocritically be the only way out of this situation, but on the students side rather than the institutions. One realistic option is for students to create opportunities through their course to make money, running business models such as clubs, shops, cafes that can then fund their own choices for invited speakers/ workshops, trips and exhibitions. An even more radical option as JJ suggested is setting up private art schools from private fees and private collectors patronage (which would alleviate the need for a lot of bureaucracy created by merged institutions).

Currently in most universities there are around 40 students in each year, which must bring in about £160,000. I can only think that if purely spent on their education and tutor contact it would buy a pretty hefty course and some heavy weight intellectual/ artistic tutors. Protoacademy in Edinburgh was by far the best educational experience I have had, set up as a kind of parasitic organisation on the outside of the existing art school, it was funded from research money, however when I think about the costs involved they were low, around £30,000 a year. For this we organised seminars, invited guests, symposia, exhibitions, theory sessions, trips and a space to meet in - all this for only 8 students yearly fee?

It brings to mind two questions - 1. is the formal art degree actually useful at the end of the day in balance with the amount of beurocracy and financial wastage university accreditation creates? and 2. what happens if students run their own course -is this time spend away from studio practice detrimental to their work?

1. Well actually in art a formal degree doesn't seem to be that helpful, its not medicine. Unless you are wanting to go back to college to do an MA (more payout), or retrain in another profession the degree is never ever mentioned.
2. As I was trying to explain in this symposium the possibility of throwing open the running of the course to the students does actually work - as was tried and tested in the protoacademy experiment, it also taught one the necessary real world skills of managing your practice in relationship to organising/ facilitating.  

So although the blog isn't the place to explore this in a more balanced manner, the conference left me with the distinct impression that actually a more pure and total privatization of the art-school could be a good option for art educational reform, casually dispensing with the degree qualification, where groups of like minded people get together under a skeleton staff to run their own 4 year peer led educational experience?

Posted by Bryan 

17.5 m of fabric screen printed for the parlour of Low Parkamoor. Now awaiting curtain making.

Folk/Sottsass writing desk also for the parlour

Back to Leeds after 21 days in the mountain village of Nanling China for the Happy Stacking project (there is a dedicated blog). Leeds looks pretty grubby on our first outing back - to the chinese supermarket. We bought a rice cooker back which is solving our lunch problem of too expensive, not nice sandwiches, or cheap food with no nutrition. How did things get like this? Nanling was amazing, fresh veggies, fish, rice and noodles everyday for 7 for about £5. We are sad to be back.

Leaving the village we spent 1 night in Gwangzhou to meet the British Council and Mr Chen, the project client. It is an enormous city of 11 million people. The taxi ride to the smart Garden Hotel took 40 minutes cross town passing never-ending apartment blocks. Mr Chen treated us to breakfast here where we ate Dim Sum in a private pagoda drinking Green Tea from his home town. Delicious, and an excercise in patience as tea is served in a large wine glasses and you have to wait for the leaves to sink to the bottom before drinking.

The journey to Hong Kong airport from Gwangzhou gave me the brief insight I'd been searching for into China's economic boom as manufacturer to the world. Factories and workers apartment blocks lined the road side for about 3-4 hours. I've never seen anything like it before and the scale is hard to take in, fringed with banana plantations and the odd paddy field in between. Farewell to our friends in China. 

The Wonderful North project is temporarily taking up real space as well as its home on the web with a display at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Here are some of the pamphlets collected from the road trip, and models from the artwork.

I can't believe that another of my favourite buildings in Leeds is being destroyed! (along with the international swimming pool). The H-blocks at Leeds Metropolitan University are about to meet their maker. Surely these functional concrete structures with a proper internal refit and new metal or wooden windows could stay, maintaining their honest geometric simplicity and no nonsense chic that has graced the student zone in the city for the last 40 or so years. This would also be far more eco friendly than wasting energy demolishing them and building some mediocre quasi-contemporary architecture in its place which will also meet the demolition squad in another 30 years. It would be nice to see more of this concrete architecture receiving the same holistic approach and regeneration that the industrial brick buildings of the 18th and 19th century have in recent years. The H-block buildings are currently used as the art department and convey a gritty urban edge that art needs, also referencing back to the days when Leeds was awash with political activism and the Leeds Metropolitan (then polytechnic) led the way for cutting edge performance art. At least Leeds University is still keeping some of its fantastic 60's and 70's gems (because it is so Sci-Fi it is rumoured to have been used to film episodes of Blake Seven).

Trompe L’oeil marble tiles 

Section of a repeat pattern for the parlour curtains. The hexagonal shaped object in the print is the parlour desk that Bryan and I made - a mix of Ettore Sottsass and folk furniture. I have taken up the Sottsass/'Memphis' style in the curtain designs as there is plenty of tradition at Parkamoor. 

The Romanian Ambassador his Excellency Ion Jinga has visited Leeds and our sculpture Hello Friends at Bridgewater Place with the Council's International Relations department. Unfortunately we were not invited, it would have been great to meet him and talk about the influence of the 'Endless Column' by Brancusi on the work and the conversations we have had with the Brancusi Foundation in Romania and various experts here in the UK.

Whether he liked the work or not is not clear, however he has asked (insisted!) that we put a plaque on it detailing the Brancusi and Romanian link. This sounds like a great idea to us as the Endless Column is one of the main raison d'etre's of our sculpture. We thought the link came across clearly enough in the actual form of the artwork, without requiring a brass enscribed note (even one of the cleaners recognised the reference!). When I get a bit of time I would like to notify the Ambassador of the many other Brancusi homages out there. He may wish to get in contact with the artists/collectors who own them and suggest similar action. Here are a few to get started on: 

Image captions:

'Endless Column' by Tal Streeter

'Kusine' by Nicole Wermers

unknown source

'Endless Gnome' by Christopher L. Williams

'Coluna sem fim' by Franz Weissman 

'Sculpture silhouette prop' by Peter Coffin

'Endless Column' in second life

Now on at Wakefield Art Gallery - No, not that 'Grand Designs'. This is an exhibition showing works from the Arts Council Collection by Henry Moore, Victor Pasmore, Anya Gallaccio, Kenneth and Mary Martin and others, including our model for 'Hello Friends'. Grand Designs - 9  February - 13 April.

For one week now we have been living in a Hymer motorhome driving around the north of England. This is our new home and studio for the next month for the Wonderful North web project. Yes, we know it's January and today there's snow on the ground, but we're enjoying the off-season campsites and rapidly changing scenery. The purpose of the road trip is research out of which we will make new commissioned work for the website based on 28 days in the North. We're writing a daily blog on the Wonderful North site so please look for us there.

Highlights so far: interviewing Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane at the launch of the Greasy Pole, Egremont; the seaside, Bridlington's empty amusement arcades and the Harbour Bar in Scarborough. Getting electric hook up to charge the batteries...