Blog Post 1

Posted on 6th May 2025 by Eva Feld

Disability & Intersectionality

How does an individual’s disability interact with their other identities? Crenshaw’s theory of Intersectionality provides a suitable prism for analysis as it frames the intersection as a legal and societal blindspot that has to be considered for each individual to understand the many forces impacting them. Illustrated on the examples of Ade and Christine, I discuss how the intersection of their disability with their other identity aspects might have impacted their lives. 

Ade Adepitan intersects disability and race. He is a Nigerian-born black male and a famous British TV presenter and author (Wikipedia, 2025). Ade is socially well respected, exemplified in his opinion being frequently thought out on diverse topics (BBC News, 2025; Rotary, 2025, BCU, 2024). Bound to a wheelchair (Rotary, 2025), Ade, frustrated with structural barriers, emphasises “[…], what makes people disabled is not their disability. […] It’s society. Society is what holds us back. It’s that systemic discrimination and oppression.” (ParalympicsGB, 2020). This echoes the Social Model of Disability, which theorises disability as a social phenomenon, differentiating between disability and impairment (Shakespeare, 2010). 

Christine Sun Kim is a female American, blind and mute. She is a well-recognised artist living in Berlin. She intersects disability, gender, race and parental care. Her early experiences were shaped by her non-hearing community in Los Angeles which provided a place of belonging and inclusion. However, according to Christine, this meant at the same time exclusion from the hearing world and to pursue her artistic career she had to leave to move to New York and later to Berlin, an experience she found scary at first, but embraced soon after (Art21, 2023).   

A recurring theme I notice, is that both represent lived examples of what Ade describes as having found an “opportunity to shine” (ParalympicsGB, 2020, 03:50). Their socioeconomic success makes them rather exceptional too. As Caroline Ellison, Professor of Ageing and Disability at UniSA in South Australia, points out, “there is often an intersectionality between disability and homelessness or disability and poverty” (UniSA, 2023, 26:49). Thus, an evaluation of Ade’s and Christine’s experiences is likely not representative of intersectional disability in general.

Notably, an awareness of their exceptional success, led them both to using their influence for raising awareness. Ade’s scope of influence is international, working with Rotary, he shares in a interview “[…] it was a no-brainer for me to start working with Rotary International to try and spread the word and help, sort of try and eradicate polio.” (Rotary, 2025, 04:18), and as the new Chancellor of Birmingham City University he states: “To be in a position where I can influence is humbling and empowering.”

Screenshot of Christine Sun Kim’s large scale art, Art21 (2023, 12:51)

Christine raises awareness of the needs of the deaf, exemplified in an art project using  large-scale captions with poetically unusual, thought-provoking content. She realised that “[…] scale equals visibility and visibility can shape social norms.” She further urges her audience “If you don’t see us we have no place to be.” (Art21, 2023)

“[…] scale equals visibility and visibility can shape social norms.”

Christine Sun Kim (2023)

Talking to other teachers on the product programme, the most frequent impairments are mental health struggles (see fig. 2 disability 6 way FDD) and language barriers. Currently, our student cohort on the MA Innovative Fashion Production (IFP) course is International Asian only (see fig 3. Fee Status IFP) with a large minority of students with low English capabilities. To mitigate the language barriers, I am planning on integrating closed captions in more teaching situations, extending their current use from lectures to seminars. For creating spaces to consider students with mental health struggles and neurodivergence, I am thinking of ways to reduce anxiety, for example by considering noise sensitivity (ParaPride, 2025, 3:46) and re-thinking classroom participation models. I’m concluding with paraphrasing Chay that a place where everyone gets to participate is a better place for all (ParaPride, 2025, 6:57).

fig. 2 disability 6 way Fashion Design & Development
fig 3. Fee Status Innovative Fashion Production

References


Art21 (2023) Christine Sun Kim in “Friends & Strangers” – Season 11 | Art21 1 November. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI&ab_channel=Art21 (Accessed: 1 May 2025)


Birmingham City University (2024) Ade Adepitan MBE | New Chancellor of Birmingham City University25 October https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYpysAkaARM&ab_channel=BirminghamCityUniversity (Accessed: 2 May 2025)


ParalympicsGB (2020) Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism 16 October. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU&ab_channel=ParalympicsGB (Accessed: 2 May 2025)

ParaPride (2023) Intersectionality in Focus: Empowering Voices during UK Disability History Month 2023 13 December https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7GmJ0uFv_s&ab_channel=Rotary (Accessed: 5 May 2025)


Rotary (2025) World Immunization Week 2025: A Conversation with Ade Adepitan 30 April https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7GmJ0uFv_s&ab_channel=Rotary (Accessed: 2 May 2025)


Shakespeare, T. (2010)  “The Social Model of Disability.” The Disability Studies Reader. Ed. Lennard J. Davis. New York: Routledge, 2010. 266-73. Print. (Pre-print copy.) Available at: http://thedigitalcommons.org/docs/shakespeare_social-model-of-disability.pdf (Accessed: 1 May 2025)


UniSA Justice & Society (2023) The Social Model of Disability (ft. Caroline Ellison) n.d. September. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4NSNHlg6PKHGL6h15iDeyD?si=f1fe4e9df4574307 (Accessed: 1 May 2025)


Wikipedia (2025) Ade Adepitan 7 April. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ade_Adepitan (Accessed: 2 May 2025)

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CASE STUDY 3

Posted on 6th March 2025 by Eva Feld

Assess and/or give feedback for learning.

Course: MA Innovative Fashion Production, Year 2024/25

Introduction

Recently, two students were asking for a conversation to clarify upon the feedback and grade I had given them. They felt they had been treated unfairly as they didn’t receive the highest mark within their working group, even though they had done “all the work”. Whilst the others had done less. The unit Business Models and Fashion Production asks students to working in groups alongside individual tasks connected to the group work. 

Evaluation

In a private conversation with both, I had the chance to explain to the students how their work is marked against the learning outcomes and assessment criteria based on specific examples from their own work. I think that both students only then properly understood the learning outcomes’ meaning and how to improve in the areas they fell short on, namely in process and knowledge. I found the conversation lead to a satisfying result on both sides and illustrated the student’s learning journey (see fig. 1) and the teacher’s (see fig. 2). 

This experience illustrates three stages of student learning gain opportunities. The first, learning is happening by doing (Willcocks, 2018). However, it also highlights that doing alone does not capitalise on the full learning gain potential (fig.1. bar chart 1). Engagement with feedback (Gibbs, 2015; Brooks 2008) helps the learner to identify shortcomings and prompts further reflection and criticality. Lastly, feedback discussion (Brooks, 2008) encourages the student to question not only their work with a another person (Vygotsky, 1978), but an opportunity to question the teacher’s decisions and debate the work, furthering skills such as criticality, negotiation and autonomous learning.

Whist I matched the student’s learning journey against learning gain (fig.1), I decided to highlight the depth of understanding for the student’s learning needs on the teacher’s learning journey (fig.2). This is because of the following experience.

Subsequently, in the seminars on the new unit, I gave both students pointers to where and how they have a chance to work on the skills which they haven’t mastered yet. Catching myself doing it, I realised that I got to know the learning needs of these students much better than those of the students I haven’t talked about the feedback to. Through the feedback discussion, my memory was altered and alerted (fig.2). 

Implications and action plan

Based on this experience, I agree with Brooks (2008), that It is not more feedback the students need, the value lies in providing fewer, but specific, meaningful examples (ie. Student’s own work) which should act as a point in case, applicable to further similar tasks. 


“Changing what students do with your feedback can make more difference than changing your feedback.”

Gibbs, 2015

On my course, we currently don’t have feedback discussions planned into the curriculum. Therefore, I will advocate for a curriculum-embedded feedback discussion (Brooks, 2008). As a consequence, students would have to engage with their feedback in preparation (Gibbs, 2015, ch. 14), thus maximising on the learning for work already done benefitting both the learner and the teacher . 

Finally, as Race (2005) points out, students need to be clear, that the feedback discussion and the resulting take-aways are serving them to do better on the next task, which is called feedforward. In the future, I will work out together with the student which skills they have acquired and how they are transferrable to future tasks. 

In summary, clarity, specificity, practice, feedback and feedback discussion increases the student’s learning gain and the teacher’s understanding for student’s learning needs. 

References

Brooks, K. (2008) AdvanceHE. Available at: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/feature-kate-brooks_1568036673.pdf (Accessed: 15 March, 2025)

Fry, H. and Gibbs, G. (2015) A handbook for teaching and learning in higher education: enhancing academic practice. Fourth edition. Edited by S. Ketteridge and S. Marshall. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Race, P. (2013) ‘Making Learning Happen: A Guide for Post‐Compulsory Education. By Phil Race. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2010. xi + 250 pages. ISBN 978‐1‐84920‐114‐8. $44.95.’, Teaching Theology & Religion, 16(1), pp. 102–104. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12018.

UAL Central Saint Martins (2018) Museum & Study Collection: Judy Willcocks Copenhagen Presentation. 27th June, (min. 10:23) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3O7MM5WuFo  (Accessed: 15 March, 2025)

Vygotsky, L.L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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BLOG POST 4

Posted on 6th March 2025 by Eva Feld

Learning Outcomes x Social, Racial and Climate Justice

When I started teaching and more importantly, with it – marking, I came to realise with revelatory appreciation the power and significance of Learning Outcomes. I experienced for the first time, how consequential they were. 

Rewind to two years ago, before I became a teacher, I was one of UAL’s climate advocates for the product program at the School of Design and Technology. One of my tasks was to audit course handbooks (UAL, 2023) against UAL social racial and climate justice principles (UAL, unknown) with the aim to embed those principles in the taught content of all courses over a 10-year period. 

At first, the annually repeated task seemed to be Sisyphus work, nebulous, using cryptic language that teachers struggled to understand, not to mention students. Why employ people to phase content into the course handbooks that no student ever read?

As weeks passed by, I had my recommendations for implementation prepared for talking to the course leaders, whose course content has not reached the final desired stage of The Shift yet. At this final stage, courses had the Social, Racial and Climate Justice Principles contextualised in the handbook, made them part of the course aims and objectives and had them assessed in at least one unit at each level (UAL-ADAL, unknown). All nice on paper, soon catching digital dust on an ignored Course handbook tile on Moodle, so I thought. 

That was until I taught and marked. I realised then, for instance, if the Learning Outcomes ask to demonstrate a “comprehensive understanding of the environmental and social implications of fashion production” and evidence is missing in the student’s work, they will fail the unit. 

Teachers are determining the LOs and “curriculum content […],thereby privileging institutional priorities […]”, the case in point here being the Social, Racial and Climate justice principles (Addison, 2014). In other words, the university not only shows that it agrees with the Social, Racial and Climate justice principles, but acts upon them, enforcing the engagement with them by each student. 

Personally, I’m in favour of this measure, because  it is arguably for the greater good of society, just as the state’s provision of services and infrastructure is also considered useful to society. 

Thinking of Addisons debate of the Learning Outcomes, I think the importance lies in being aware of their benefits and deficiencies affecting diverse contexts within the education system. This allows me within my area of influence to counter-act the deficits proactively making the most out of the benefits the system has. 

Taking another perspective, this experience also demonstrates how inaccessible learning outcomes were for me as an MA student. I read them but ultimately used the more specific assignment instructions for practice guidance and I used academic papers for guidance on how to contextualise. 

As a teacher, I observe many students similarly struggling with the phrasing of learning outcomes (also see case study 3), until they are deciphered, demonstrated how they translate into an outcome and practiced by doing. 

Therefore, I plan on creating a make the grade check list, similar to the one we are provided with now, which helps tying the elements of the learning outcomes back to specific elements of the assignment. I believe this will help the teachers and students alike. In fact, my course leader asks for precisely these kind of improvements after each unit run. 

References

Addison, N. (2014) ‘Doubting Learning Outcomes in Higher Education Contexts: from Performativity towards Emergence and Negotiation’, International Journal of Art & Design Education, 33(3), pp. 313–325. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12063.

UAL- Academic Discourse & Action Learning (ADAL) (unknown) Embedding Climate, Racial and Social Justice Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0037/399376/Embedding-Framework-Climate,-Social-and-Racial-Justice.pdf (Accessed: 17 March 2025)

UAL: (2023) Handbook Audit: Nest Steps for Courses and Programmes Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0038/399377/Handbook-Audit.pdf (Accessed: 17 March 2025)

UAL: (unknown) Climate, Racial and Social Justice principles Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/374149/principles-for-climate-racial-and-social-justice.pdf (Accessed: 17 March 2025)

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Observation

Posted on 6th March 2025 by Eva Feld

Review of teaching practice

The observation of my teaching practice by my peer Julia Redman and my tutor Kwame Baah took place on the 11th of February, 2025. 

I observed my peer Julia Redman’s teaching practice on the 24th of February. 

Review by my peer Julia Redman as observer of my teaching practice

ROT-form-Eva-Feld_Feedback-from-JuliaDownload

Observer for Julia Redman

ROT-form-Julia-Redman-Eva-ObservingDownload

Review by my tutor Kwame Baah as observer of my teaching practice

ROT-form-Eva-Feld_KwameDownload
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BLOG POST 3

Posted on 2nd March 2025 by Eva Feld

Criticality and Biases

In Talking Art as the Spirit Moves Us, American theorist, feminist, educator and social critic bell hooks (1995) illustrates how ignorant members of one culture are to members of another, how negatively the dominant culture’s arrogance affects minority groups. Based on the example of Edward Lucie-Smith’s (1994) book Race, sex, and gender in contemporary art: The Rise of Minority Culture, hooks calls out the hypocrisy of his statements and blatant insults of art by “African-Americans, feminists, homosexuals and Latino-Hispanics” originated in his lack of criticality and a bias towards ‘official art’, as he calls it (Lucie-Smith, 2020), and ‘white-supremacist patriarchal bias’ as hooks calls it (hooks,1995). 

The book chapter incentivised me to have a closer look at both bell hooks and Edward Lucie-Smith, an influential Jamaican-born English art critic, to evaluate their work and statements and to get a better idea of the historical context. This included to find out who else has criticised Lucie-Smith, his person and book in question and who has criticised bell hooks’ works. My aim was to exercise criticality and explore my own standpoint, as it was tempting to take and agree with hook’s viewpoint, knowing my social beliefs. Was there another element of conforming with current dialogue? According to Jacobsen and Mustafa (2019), my views would be highly informed by the “social and political climate” at the time of reflection, thus shaping my thinking and ideals that in turn inform my conscious and unconscious bias.

On my course, one important skill my students are asked to acquire and showcase is criticality. I think that criticality is facilitated by taking different viewpoints and being aware of one’s own biases. 

Therefore, even though awareness and engagement with one’s biases is embedded in the Research Proposal unit for all Master courses during the second block, including activities, such as the Positionality map by Jacobsen and Mustafa (2019) which prompts to think about one’s biases might be suitable at the beginning of the studies, alongside or embedded in ice-breaker sessions. 

My personal next steps to further my learning for improving my awareness of my biases for teaching in the classroom are completing The UAL Breaking Bias e-learning module and then find a conversation amongst our course team on the basis of De-biasing strategies for teachers provided by the Academic Enhancement Model.  

References

Academic Enhancement, University of the Arts London (2025) Vikki Hill: De-biasing strategies. Available at: 

https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/190152/AEM-Debiasing-Strategies-PDF-294KB.pdf (Accessed: 17 March, 2025)

hooks, b. (1995) Talking art as the spirit moves us’, in Art on my mind: visual politics. New York: The New Press Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/7/7bHooks_Bell_Art_on_My_Mind_Visual_Politics_1995.pdf (Accessed 16 March 2025)  

Jacobson, D., & Mustafa, N. (2019). Social identity map: A reflexivity tool for practicing explicit positionality in critical qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1609406919870075. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919870075.

Lucie-Smith, E. (1994) Race, sex, and gender in contemporary art: The Rise of Minority Culture New York: H.N. Abrams.

Lucie-Smith, E. (2020) Artlyst: What I Don’t Like About The Contemporary Art Scene. Available at: https://artlyst.com/features/i-dont-like-contemporary-art-scene-edward-lucie-smith/ (Accessed: 17 March 2025)

UAL (2025) Breaking Bias e-learning module Available at: https://learningspace.arts.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=34(Accessed 17 March 2025)   

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CASE STUDY 2

Posted on 2nd March 2025 by Eva Feld

Plan for and support student learning through appropriate approaches and environments.

The course I’m teaching on, MA Innovative Fashion Production, aims to prepare the students for changing design and production systems to help lessen the environmental impact of the fashion industry. They are challenged to question the status quo, identify new opportunities by using emerging technologies and sustainable approaches and test their ideas.

This year, when asking for feedback on the student’s first unit assignment, a few students said that they wished for the assignments to be “more realistic”, wishing for working on projects that directly fit within the processes currently used in the industry. 

This revealed a discrepancy between what teachers and some students thought the purpose of studying on this course is. Consequently, the aims of education are apparently not clear and with it expectations of taught content and assignment design differs. 

Fig.1

What a great opportunity for a classroom conversation, maybe a debate? However, I am unsure about how to approach this strategically and productively. 

As the teaching team is very clear about- and happy with the course aims (fig.1) at the moment, I want to excite the students about the opportunities it entails, namely that, as bell hooks (1994,p.12) puts it “The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.” Where bell hooks’ classroom space is opposed to demands and expectations of family, community and society,  my classroom’s space is opposed to economic compulsion to function within- and serve a capitalist, fast-fashion market. 


“The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.”


bell hooks, 1994, p.12

In other words, where and when else do we have the time and space to collectively rethink our actions with the aim to improve processes which are, in this case, detrimental to the environment and consequentially to human health?

Another good reason which I can raise awareness of, is the reality of rapid changes in the job market and industry knowledge requirements, as my tutor, Kwame Baah, pointed out to me, when I asked him for his thoughts. 

On the other hand, acknowledging that the student wasn’t aware of the content still to be taught which includes indeed much contemporary industry practice, I can inform the class I will emphasise that in preparation to disrupt current practices we are teaching them about the current system in more depth than they have been taught during their BA. I will follow this up with specific examples of unit content to be taught before they finally embark on their self-guided  Masters projects. 

To incite or nurture excitement amongst the teachers and students (fig.2), I turned to collaborative approaches, one of which is the Academic Enhancement’s Framework for Student Partnerships and Co-creation at UAL. 

Where the aims of our course are non-negotiable on short-term, sub-ordinate aims are well negotiable, such as which specific areas within fashion production is examined, case studies, etc., “can be decided together and can be “organic, evolving and changeable.”(UAL: – Academic Enhancement, p.2).

Pursuing this approach, I will share and talk about the framework with the students, as it introduces principles of a teacher-student relationship that my students are unlikely to be familiar with (I wasn’t), such as unknowing and relationality. Despite this hurdle, I think it will be worthwhile, if the result yields an enhanced level of motivation, meaning and excitement towards our work. 

Fig. 2

References

Academic Enhancement, University of the Arts London (2025) Dr Amita Nijhawan: Framework for Student Partnerships and Co-creation at UAL. Available at: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/453201/Framework-for-Student-Partnerships-and-Co-creation-at-UAL-2.pdf Accessed: 10 March, 2025

Freire, P. (2014). Pedagogy of hope. London: Bloomsbury.

hooks, bell (1994) Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. (p. 12) Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203700280.

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CASE STUDY 1

Posted on 9th February 2025 by Eva Feld

Knowing and responding to students’ diverse needs

Background

Not long ago, I was a student on the course I’m teaching on, MA Innovative Fashion Production. During my studies, I struggled with the weekly workload because I wasn’t able to work efficiently in the classroom setting. As a teacher, I am observing significant differences in how effectively students are working on tasks during seminars. 

Evaluation

I believe that there is diversity in student’s working preferences and learning needs. Exemplified by my own experience, some of the struggles that students experience might be feeling too self-conscious to think and write, particularly when seated directly next to peers. Personally, I experienced feelings of insecurity, fear of failure and self-doubt – all against my better rational judgment and beliefs. In other words, I could not free myself of my emotional response even though I was committed to improve and overcome my difficulties, knowing that at home, I would meet practical and personal challenges endangering efficient work practices. 

Moving forward

My aim is to facilitate a better work-life balance for my students; first, by identifying different learning preferences and then subsequently, by reducing stress factors that prevent students to work efficiently in the classroom and the communal university spaces. According to Hussey and Smith (2010), helping diverse students to become autonomous learners is best supported by choosing a flexible approach, such as acknowledging the dynamic system between the student, the teaching environment and the task (p.153).

Thus, as a starting point, I can converse with the students about their preferred working practices, share what I have observed and find out in a ‘reality check’ (Bamber & Jones, 2015, p.162, strategy 1) how they experience working in class. Bamber & Jones (2015) state that such a conversation “may uncover disparities or communalities, which can be negotiated.”

Then, opting for an area I can influence, opposed to one being out of my control, such as ‘lifeload’ factors (Kahu, 2013: 767), I can think about shaping the learning environment during my seminars whilst accommodating diverse needs, in the sense that “good teaching […] puts both the student and the intellectual experience at the centre, and is good teaching for all students.” (Bamber & Jones 2015, p.152) 

To mitigate learning-inhibiting feelings of self-consciousness, I could provide more privacy to each student for individual seminar tasks. For example, this might include to space out tables and/ or to make use of additional spaces the university provides, such as the private cubicles of the library or the heart spaces, spaces that are usually not fully populated. 

On the opposite side of the learning-preference spectrum, I observed students thriving in the classroom, specifically during collaborative work. It seems that only then they are performing at their best; their response is bold and spontaneous. These student characteristics align broadly with the ‘intentional learners’ described by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (2002:xi). 

I believe that collaboration helps all learners in various ways, one of which is to strengthen social bonds and belonging another is the increased ‘time on task’ leading to higher learning gains (Gibbs, 2015: 14). Both learning types might benefit from one another, the spontaneous and the critical cross-pollinate to increase productivity and achieve high quality work.

References

Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) (2002) Great Expectations: A New vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College Washington, DC: AAC&U.

Bamber, V. and Jones, A. (2015) A handbook for teaching and learning in higher education: enhancing academic practice. Fourth edition. Edited by H. Fry, S. Ketteridge, and S. Marshall. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge.

Fry, H. and Gibbs, G. (2015) A handbook for teaching and learning in higher education: enhancing academic practice. Fourth edition. Edited by S. Ketteridge and S. Marshall. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Hussey, T and Smith, P (2010) The Trouble with Higher Education: A Critical Examination of our Universities. New York and London: Routledge.

Kahu, E.R. (2013) ‘Framing student engagement in higher education’, Studies in Higher Education, 38(5), pp. 758–773. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.598505.

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Microteaching

Posted on 9th February 2025 by Eva Feld

Ideation Accelerator

Fig. 1

The idea for my object-based learning activity stems from a recent classroom situation. I encouraged the students to always generate more ideas than needed, in this case, to generate more research topic ideas. To illustrate my point, I used the visual practice as an analogy to the verbal, in particular informed by Tom and David Kelly’s work Creative Confidence, in which the benefits of many ideas is highlighted. 

Judy Willcock’s remark „The fact that we process and recall and understand really quite little of what we read and hear but so much of what we make and do.“ deeply resonated with me. I wondered if “making and doing” could be used to fuel creative confidence in one’s ability to generate many ideas, both verbal and visual.

The learning aims encompass visual and verbal ideation, creative confidence, aesthetic judgment and drawing skills. The objects I decided to use are translucent 3-dimensional shapes. For all activities, the time constraint and the number of iterations to be created were the lever to increase ideation.

Following Judy Willcock’s framework, I opted for “holding information back about objects” to facilitate visual, intuitive or extra-rational responses. The focus should be on the engagement with the objects, not the objects themselves. (Willcocks,year). 

Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Timed session plan

Total time for activity: 20 minutes

  1. Explaining the exercise 2 min
  2. Activity 1 – pile up shapes 3-5 min
  3. Activity 2 – draw 5 min
  4. Activity 3 – write titles 5 min

„I came to understand the importance of experiential learning, particularly in an art and design context. The fact that we process and recall and understand really quite little of what we read and hear but so much of what we make and do.“

UAL Central Saint Martins, 2018
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Session description

During the activity, I observed that the engagement with activity 1 exceeded my expectations in terms of creative output. Participants found extraordinary ways to create new objects. One participant carried his object over to the window to photograph it including a specific background, thus giving their work another dimension and meaning. In the same vein, another participant, used their phone torch to cast light through the translucent shapes (Fig.6). I further observed collaboration (Fig.7). However, activity 2 did not yield the creative output I was looking for. The shapes were mostly replicated rather than used for silhouette finding. Finally, results from activity 3, Title creation, were highly creative and interesting (Fig. 9 to Fig. 12)

Participant feedback and reflection

Activity 1

Participant 1: “I loved playing with the shapes.” [everyone agreed]

Based on my observation and this unison positive feedback, I will use this activity in the future again in various iterations. 

Activity 2

Participant 2: “I am offended by the figurines.” [another one agreed]

I understand the participant’s objection to using an idealised figurine. Admittedly, in this instance, I was ignorant and didn’t give the figurine I used for this session much thought. I’m aware of and embrace the practice and discourse of body inclusivity. 

On another note, I realised that I omitted to think of the difference between generating many ideas or generating more iterations of one concept or idea. The resulting approach to take would be very different, of course. I’ll choose the latter. Therefore, I would change activity 2. I would ask the students to pick their favourite of the objects they created in activity 1 and produce 3 iterations of it by using the shapes, again, then taking pictures of the results. 

Activity 3

Participant 2: “I don’t want to label the creation, I don’t want to put a label on it.”

Due to time restraints I could not clarify this statement nor receive more feedback from other participants. For instance, is a headline as objectionable as a label? What about a written paragraph instead? Be that as it may, I would change this activity to a reflective one, during which the students can reflect in written form (or group discussion) on their intuitive decision making during the exercise. Did it help them to be looser and more productive in their ideation process?

Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

References

Kelley, T. and Kelley, D. (2015) Creative confidence: unleashing the creative potential within us all. Paperback edition. London: William Collins.

UAL Central Saint Martins (2018) Museum & Study Collection: Judy Willcocks Copenhagen Presentation. 27th June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3O7MM5WuFo

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BLOG POST 2: Social Justice

Posted on 8th February 2025 by Eva Feld

The Role of Universities

I left Workshop 1 wondering what the purpose of education is. What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the university? What is their purpose?

The group task that prompted these questions was Derive a definition for social justice and list some components of a higher education system.

This immediately triggered a conversation around socio-economic injustices with a focus on hourly-paid lecturer contracts that don’t provide social security with the university as a suspected beneficiary. Of course, universities have to manage their spending costs carefully. In the UK, they are competing against each other, attracting students with their fame.The conversation highlighted the need of the university to be financially viable and self-sufficient. I shared my concern for universities being subject to economic competition in the education market, unlike the ones I went to. 

In contrast, German public universities are government-funded and supported by taxes, a luxury I took for granted when studying at a university in Hamburg in 2003. 

What are the current struggles in higher education institutions? Cronin and Czerniewicz (2023) identified neoliberalism as one of the systemic struggles of global education. The affects of neoliberalism being not only economical “through continuous state underfunding” but also political and cultural “through the transfer of free market thinking into educational practices and language.”

I found some more answers to my initial questions in the course literature: As for the purpose, universities could be “serving society as a change agent and empowering people across different sections of society” (Misra & Mishra, Ch. 25)

By understanding the challenges prevalent in the higher education sector much better now, the “pursuit of fairness, equity and inclusivity within the education system” (UAL, 2025) makes much more sense to me, particularly after having read about more specific examples. And by association, so does the term social justice.

References

Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin (eds), Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2023,

https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0363

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BLOG POST 1: The International Student

Posted on 19th January 2025 by Eva Feld

Learnings from my set reading

The International Student Experience

My assigned reading Savage’s ‘The New Life’,  prompted me to reflect on the Eurocentric socio-political landscape in Higher Education in Arts opposed to the Russian-centric one described in the study and its effect on the student experience.  

There are two stakeholders in the study: the benefactors and the beneficiaries. The benefactors are a group of socialist countries, interested in securing influence in Africa and in promoting “Leninist ideals of anti-imperial internationalism.”. They are offering bursaries to over 72,000 students of the global south. The second, the beneficiaries are the group of African students awarded the bursaries. They are seeking a better life away from their war-wrecked countries and the danger of becoming a victim of aggression and attacks (Savage, 2023, p.1079).

Savage (2023) explains that the curriculum imposed by the Russian government on Higher Education in Arts is Soviet-centric, explicitly and prescriptively in line with the aesthetic of Russian realist paintings. It needed to be realistic. Russian artists, such as abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), fell outside this requirement, thus were not only excluded from the taught content but outspokenly disregarded. Students who wanted to do well, needed to conform with the realist painting aesthetic (Savage, 2023, p. 1087). 

The overall student experience was mixed with a high awareness among the students of the demand for sociopolitical conformity on one hand, and positive experiences due to the close friendships formed with home students and teachers on the other. Solidarity and equality, as lived experiences, became values the students took on for life.

Although the motivations of the educational institution with their study offer and that of the students wanting to study is completely different in my teaching context, I can still find relatable aspects in the study. 

One connection I can draw to my teaching context lies in the similarities of the socio-geo-political differences between the Higher Education institution, its curriculum and the teaching team on one side and the students on the other. As of 2024/25, 100 per cent of the students attending the MA Innovative Fashion Production course, which I predominantly teach on, are international students from Asia. 

Analogous to the Africans students in Russia, my Asian students in the UK might similarly experience ignorance from peers and teachers in respect to their country’s geographical locations, politics or cultural particularities: 

In Savage’s study, Raimundo, an African student recalled:

“It was like the USSR was the entire world! They didn’t even know where Africa was […].”

Raimundo Macaringue

To mitigate such a negative experience, I can implement my knowledge of Chinese culture and geography in my seminars as appropriate. This might make the students feel acknowledged in their cultural identity. I believe, showing my interest in their country and culture, ultimately demonstrates my interest in them as individuals and could form a relationship between us. As a precedence, I recall that I was shown great affection by a study group of four students, upon finding out that we had a common interest in a book and TV series by a Chinese author. Their excitement about my interest went as far as offering to gift me a subscription to the Chinese TV channel to watch the program. 

Reference

Savage, P. (2022) ‘The New Life’: Mozambican Art Students in the USSR, and the Aesthetic Epistemologies of Anti-Colonial Solidarity. Art History, 45(5), pp.1078-1100.

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