The title of this paper is deliberately positive even though the national circumstances may not be. These circumstances are characterised by centralisation, conformity, compliance, and fear; fear of litigation and fear of auditors; administered through procedures drawn up by acronymic quangos such as Ofsted and the QAA.

This paper is essentially in four parts (not counting this introduction and the following quotes): Won, To, Free and For. The presentation at the Independent Art School Conference in Hull in October 2000 from which this paper has been drawn included a fifth part ' V' which was discussion and assessment. The following quotes are self explanatory but also seek to give academic cuedos and gravitas reflecting favourably upon the author.

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There has never been a time in history when expression was not thoroughly managed by military, political, and cultural authority. Pre-existing social structures, from language to government to education systems, have a predetermining effect on individual thought and action. All social activity must navigate and negotiate cultural and economic waters that have been rationalised and organised to perpetuate that social system. To claim that any individual has total freedom of expression is to deny the existence of power in the world.

Freedom of Expression - Steve Barnes / Critical Art Ensemble
presentation Root 95 - published Out of Time 1998.

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The society based on production is only productive, not creative'

The Rebel - Albert Camus 1953

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Free political action from all unitary and totalizing paranoia.
Develop action, thought and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization.
Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna) which Western thought has long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems.

Preface to Anti Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari - Michel Foucault English translation 1977.

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WON

For an Independent art school as either concept or concrete reality to be won certain factors have to be addressed. The concept of independence can be regarded in two ways: independence from.....and independence to....
Independence from poverty - a private school for rich kids seems like a very bad idea. The state is important even if only as a buffer against the excesses of rampant capitalism. Access and inclusivity are important. Nevertheless social engineering doesn't sound nice.
Independence from economic and legislative control
The contradictions of attracting people, who are themselves products of a prescriptive and quantified education system, to an art school may require a certain level of deception, (the word marketing springs to mind).
Independence to engage with ones own practice
This presumes that such a practice is already in existence, if it is not how can it come about?
Pre-requisites:
The desire to engage with the independent art school and the means to do so.

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TO

What or who are the subjects of the independent art school?
(i) the student? in the psychoanalytical sense or perhaps as client;
(ii) the teacher? that is presupposing such a distinction from artist, but if the teacher is an artist and is employed primarily for themselves i.e. for an income, use of facilities the feed-back of ideas from students etc is that a good thing?;
(iii) the artist? artist as student as teacher as maker and disseminator.
(iv) education? this is essentially a process, not a thing, procedure or pseudo science, the division of education into the crass equation of teaching and learning has (in management speak) proved unhelpful;
(v) art? art is not a thing to be studied, it is a practice, it is creative, to bring, construct, to evolve into existence - a process.
The Subject:
There can be no subject or there are so many subjects that it would be futile to list them.

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FREE

Freedom is ideological, as with independence there is: freedom to... and freedom from... Forces that promote complicity and consent are at work even before birth (and this is not biology but hegemony): parents, state, religion, culture(s), media and education. How is identity formed and can there be self-determination? Post-school art education has already excluded people. This must be addressed.
Requirements:
For a means of access, for all, to different ways of thinking, of doing and making, of questioning and of playing.

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FOR

The Art Institute where art is central and is the focus for the region, where there are links with the formal education sectors (validation, support services etc); access for primary and secondary schools, general post school art & design foundations, specialised graduate and post graduate courses and research and professional practice in collaboration with organisations (such as, in Hull, Hull Time Based Arts,) and the engagement with viewers, listeners and passers by. Through collaborations funding (national lottery etc.) and sustainabilty (shared accomodation, staffing and facilities) can be possible.
Delivery
To bring artists and art education together at all levels where creativity, play, seeing, hearing , doing, thinking, making take place in an environment that enables the celebration of difference, of subjective experience, of not knowing and wanting to find out and the questioning of answers. Where a sense of confidence and rigour can be developed.
A small group of like minded people may produce an interesting and useful discussion, an arts organisation or a self-help group, these are as necessary . Contradictions can be embraced without hypocrisy

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Rob Gawthrop, Independent Art School, Hull, October 2000. © February 2001

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Rob Gawthrop is an artist/musician who works with sound, film performance and theoretical writing. He is Head of Art at the Hull School of Art & Design, University of Lincolnshire & Humberside and is a founder member and Chair of Hull Time Based Arts.

Contact : rob@robanjo.karoo.co.uk rgawthrop@humber.ac.uk
Hull Time Based Arts: htba@htba.demon.co.uk