Making and the teaching studio

Abstract

The ideological and practical environment provided by the teaching studio in UK art education is in part at least, the result of the random deposition of heterogeneous ideas and practices associated with the broad history of modern art. However, one important strand, which underlies and loosely associates otherwise distinctive and sometimes even self-consciously opposed outlooks and practices, is the notion of ‘making’. This article examines different aspects of this idea, and outlines why the teaching studio provides a hospitable setting for a practical pedagogy in art. After reviewing various institutional problems and criticisms raised with respect to the continued appropriateness and viability of the teaching studio, it is suggested that a misunderstanding of the consequences of modern art's so called post-historical situation is helping to make the continued existence of making and the teaching studio more precarious than they should be.