Art Savers

To the editor.

The news that UWS is closing down and “teaching out” the Fine Arts and Electronic Arts programs, and will abandon its Performance program, is an uncannily familiar story here on the Central Coast.
UWS students, staff and others have organized a campaign against the closure and are calling for concerned individuals to log onto their website and sign their petition. They have also set up a blog to keep everyone informed of developments.
Although UWS has said they will be introducing a new Contemporary Art program in 2008, it is difficult to get a clear view of the facts. There is little to tell us the reason for the changes. Were there ‘problems’? Is there a change in pedagogical theory at work? Do the changes arise from government educational objectives and priorities?
It would also be useful to know more about the new Contemporary Art program. Is it better or worse than the present program, and against what criteria?

It is ten years since my most recent work at UWS, so I cannot comment directly about the program, but a number of people for whom I have great respect have been passionately opposed to the closure, so I think the campaign likely deserves close attention and support.

There are of course close parallels with the situation on the Central Coast, where the University of Newcastle closed the Fine Arts program at Ourimbah, leaving central coast students no option but to move to Sydney or Newcastle for (Contemporary) Fine Art education. As with the promised “Contemporary Art” at UWS to service Western Sydney, U. Newcastle offered “Creative Arts” to Ourimbah – a similarly rubbery concept.

When asked about “Creative Arts” in September, Carmel Lutton, Head of School, was unable to give a clear statement either of the programs philosophy, projected educational outcomes or conceptual foundation as a discrete discipline. I suspect because they have not yet been formulated. All I could glean was that graduates would be able to script and produce interesting theatrical events utilizing IT skills. Good stuff, but “Is that all there is, my friend?” The program might turn out to be brilliant, but if so, that will not be because the university has understood and articulated its educational premises.

What does seem clear at UWS is that communication, consultation and collegiate process failed. In such cases it is usually a management issue, or politics mismanaged. A familiar story in the Newcastle case.

At Ourimbah the decision to close was supported by, if not based on, the 2005 Course Review report that found little to commend the Ourimbah program. This was probably a harsh but fair appraisal. The report highlighted longstanding problems of which the university was aware, and which management should have resolved years earlier.

Despite the differences in the cases, both raise serious questions about the Universities’ commitment to their regional constituencies, and responsibility to provide education of a kind to equip graduating students to participate professionally in an exacting, and increasingly global arena of practice.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the Howard instrumental, market doctrine is seeping into academic decision-making. Maybe it is inevitable that when one party is in government for a long time, institutions that rely on government funding will absorb some of the philosophy and policy of the government. But if we are to retain that rigorous, critical evaluation of prevailing ideologies and assumed foundations of society, that is one of the potentials of contemporary art – as well as the imaginative, speculative, confounding, confusing challenge that it offers, we have to resist.

We have to resist and articulate clearly, and often, why we need Art and the Humanities at the centre of academic life. And we need to make the case that we need diversity within the discipline; to draw the unique vision from the local and regional communities, and to bring to them the best the art world can offer to help them make their uniqueness part of that world.

It is important for artists to require UWS and Newcastle to be aware of their responsibility to provide their regions with education and pedagogical processes appropriate to an increasingly sophisticated international contemporary art practice.

Neil Berecry-Brown