Friday 9 December 2011

Friday

Haven't posted in a while. Been busy doing my article for the feature writing class. Handed in it today,so now I'm free and I can enjoy my holiday. In my Uni the Christmas Holiday begins one week earlier then in most Universities.
This is my article.
Written for the Evening Standard

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Make Art not Cuts

Anastassia Kutuzova talked to a photography student, Anastasija Golovicher and Jim, representative from Arts against Cuts, to find out their opinion on the government’s attempt to swing the sledgehammer at the arts.

When Anastasija Golovicher, who grew up in Reading, applied for a photography course at Middlesex University last year, she could not have known the impact the Higher Education Cuts would have on her life. Even though every student and subject is affected by the cuts, it is the arts that the government swung their sledgehammer at.

“If I knew that I wouldn’t have any money because all of it goes on my studies or that it will be this difficult to find a job, I would maybe have chosen something else to study,” says Anastasija. She also says: “If I hadn't got in this year, I simply wouldn't have been able to afford university with the new tuition fees, and I guess this will be the case for a lot of aspiring students.”

When talking about the future Anastasija says:” I’m pretty pessimistic about the future of art and education, because in times of economic distress they always seem to be considered as dispensable by government. Britain is known for its creativity, but without anyone creating art we will just lose our national character. Also without the creative industry growing galleries will start shutting down and a lot of people will start to lose their jobs. I just think that the government can’t see the bigger picture.” This idea of the arts being dispensable is reinforced by government action by fully supporting the utilitarian subjects and planning to educate 17 000 engineers by 2014.

Jim, a representative from an organisation called Arts against Cuts”, shares the view that arts are important for the British culture. “The arts have a huge impact on the economy and the society of this country. Our creative industry hires a great amount of people, not to mention that it’s famous worldwide and how highly everyone thinks of our art institutions like Central Saint Martins. Now funding will be taken away from art schools, which I must say are the lifeblood of Britain’s arts scene.” Central Saint Martins (CSM) has proved over the years to be a leading institution to educate such people like Colin Firth, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. This year CSM moved to a new location at Kings Cross. Now they are even better equipped and all of the courses take place in one building. These improvements should attract even more students to study art, fashion and theatre.

Let us not forget the cultural aspect of tourism that attracts a lot of people to this country. London attracts 26 million tourists per year and is known for its creative and edgy vibe. ” Even with all of these arguments showing the benefits of the arts our government still talks about the utilitarian subjects being good for the society. But what good will it do for a society that is defined by its culture? Jim also adds by saying:” Our current government failed to recognise the collaborative way in which engineers work with designers and artists. So in reality all those scientist and engineers that our government so eager to produce may be out of jobs because there will be no artists that will require them.”

“No one is ready to give up,” says Jim referring to a Arts against Cuts organisation. They successfully distribute information about protest and petitions, they also encourage people to go out and stand up to the government. The organisation was originally formed by artists and used art as a tool in protest. They still use art but now they focus on all of the aspects of the cuts not only arts. While some organisations support protest, peaceful ones of course, not everyone fully agrees with them. Anastasija comments on the protests by saying:” I support the protests but I don’t participate in them. Reduced funding for education is like a ticking time bomb, because in consequence, people who do not have higher education and proper qualifications will rely on benefits, which means more pressure on the taxpayers. This is not a deliberate act but it may cause a lot of negative consequences. I doubt that the protests will lead to something or that the government will take the protest into consideration. Most of them are supported by vandalism and send the wrong message about young people.” A lot of people will agree with Anastasija but then there are those students who were peacefully protesting and got arrested or surrounded by police for hours without any valid reason. Jim adds by saying:” The media doesn’t report peaceful gatherings, they need something that sells and riots sell.”

Surely, we all know that the reason behind the protests is the growing cost of our our education. If you are a student then the prices seem unfairly high but if you are an arts student then the prices are even higher. Besides the tuition fee arts students spend a lot of money on art materials and other necessities that are needed to produce their work. “I am spending my own money on the essential materials and equipment like film, photo paper and services like colour film developing and processing. Every week I am topping up my print credit, which is about 4-6 pounds. I am spending money on the photographic services like film developing and processing, where the price differs from the quantity of exposures on my film. This takes about 8.99 pounds per film and after developing you will need to print your photographs, and again, the price is always different. Sometimes I have to spend money on extra art materials like wigs and costumes for photo shoots. So all that makes it about 40 pounds per week,”

says Anastasija. If you consider that most students don’t have disposable income then 40 quid per week is a lot to pay.

A lot of artists have raised the issue of humanitarian subjects becoming dominant by the wealthy. The key idea behind all of the arts is the representation of the society, most importantly all aspects of it. If only the wealthy produce art because they could afford it financially, then art would become disconnected from the culture. Not to mention that if the fees keep on rising, soon only the upper class will afford higher education. Even now universities are becoming more focused on the financial side of education. An example of that was seen this summer in August A level students received their results, the students that had to go through clearance faced the problem that a lot of courses where already full. They where full but only for home and EU students but for the international students, who pay almost triple the price, every course had a certain amount of places reserved. The international education sector contributes 40 billion pounds to the UK economy, second only to the financial service industry. “All of the problems are coming from people prioritising money too much. We need to get our priorities straight,” says Anastasija.

All of the problems are coming from people prioritising money too much. We need to get our priorities straight.

Did you know that...?

UCAS figures show 27 per cent decline in applications for creative art and design courses compared with this time last year.

1 in 3 arts graduate is unemployed three years after graduation.

Britain’s creative sector is the largest and the most successful in the world - employs 81per cent of countries workforce.

Britain’s 3rd largest income is from the creative industry.

Government trimmed £4 million from the Arts Council’s 2010/2011 budget.

The arts budget is 17p per week per person. That is less than a pint of milk.

The National Gallery has suffered a 15 per cent budget cut under the Coalition because of that a lot of front staff has been made redundant.

London has 12 specialist arts and culture Higher Education Institutes.

The Tate Modern is the world’s most popular modern art gallery.

Around 85% of the UK’s fashion designers are based in London

It is estimated that 200 festivals take place in London every year.

Creativity helping the society

Art against cuts - Space for students, artists and cultural workers to display and align their ideas and actions against the cuts.

Art against knifes - Art Against Knives is a youth-led charity which works to reduce the root causes of knife crime through arts initiatives that provide an alternative to a violent gang culture.

Bank of Ideas – A place for the non-financial trade of ideas to help solve the pressing economic, social and environmental problems of our time. The Bank of Ideas is located on Sun Street, Hackney in an abandoned office block.

Thursday 10 November 2011

Thursday

So its Thursday again and that means I had Introduction to Study in Higher Education or ISHE for short.
Today we talked about News Broadcasting. Basically we discussed things like what different things in the opening sequence of BBC signify.
These are some points that we talked about in the lecture :
1 Conventions of news discourse (opening sequence)
2 Immediacy in TV news
3 Narrative functions of TV News
4 Visual signs in TV News (Bignall)5 Hegemony

After that we had a seminar where we watched some clips of BBC news and had to discuss some of the points that we talked about in the lecture.

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Tuesday

On Tuesdays I have applied studies. This term I'm doing feature writing. This week instead of sitting in our tiny classroom we went to the Guardian. It's a British newspaper which is the Guardian on working days and the Observer on the weekend.
Our so called tour guide was Denis Campbell who is mainly the health journalist.
He showed around the building which is new and its amazing inside. Later we had the chance to ask him questions.
All together I expectedmore from this trip but it wasn't that bad.
After the trip I went to the CSM library to study because I find it a lot better then LCC library. Its new and they have air conditioning which is always good.




http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Monday 7 November 2011

Monday

Every Monday my lecture starts at 10.30
This particular lecture was about Public Sphere. The lecturer just talked about the history of Public Sphere, where did it come from, why its important and different philosophers(not sure maybe like social scientists) said about it. The lecture it self was about 2.30 hours. By the end of it I was sleepy and just wanted to have a break.
The break was an hour which I think is a bit long but I had time for lunch. In my Uni the food is good and a warm meal is cheaper then in a restaurant/cafe.
After the break I had a seminar where we talked about the Public Sphere and what it meant and related different recent events to it. So all together the day was informative which is always good.



PS. If you want more information about the Uni you chose start following them on Facebook and Twitter. Also read there News on their website.

Thursday 3 November 2011

Thursday

I have lessons only on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
That is because I am doing an creative/artistic subject, people who do Law or Medicine have lessons every day.
So on Thursdays my lecture starts at 10 am. The Thursday lecture is called Introduction to Study in Higher Education. The topic of this lecture was "Researching Media Institutions" .
This is the summery of the lecture which is written in the handout :
"How can we read social situations and spaces as one would read media text? The session reflects on the relationship between reader and text in the production of meaning and using key ethnographic approaches....."
There is a lot written on the hand out but you get the idea.
Personally I found the lecture a bit boring but it was because I knew half of the stuff because I studied it in college but I did get some new and useful information.

After the lecture we usually have a very long break and then we have a seminar. Only this time we had an assignment. My group had to go to High Street Kensington to Albert Memorial and do the ethnographic research which I didn't really understand or at least the point of it. I had to leave early so I didn't really help my group but I'm planning to go next week and do it.

Student

Tuesday 1 November 2011

University of the Arts London (UAL)

UAL consist of 6 colleges which together form the University.
These colleges are :

Central Saint Martin
http://www.csm.arts.ac.uk/

London College of Communication - where I study
http://www.lcc.arts.ac.uk/

London College of Fashion
http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/

Camberwell College of the Art
http://www.camberwell.arts.ac.uk/

Wimbeldon College of Art
http://www.wimbledon.arts.ac.uk/

Chelsea College of Art and Design
http://www.chelsea.arts.ac.uk/

All of these colleges are considered to be one of the best. All of them are in different part of London but they are all near a tube station or a bus stop.
If you are interested in a creative career then this University is the place for you. Famous people like Tom Ford, Colin Firth, Alexander McQueen have all studied at this University but in different colleges.
A lot of the courses do not provide a lot of guidance from the teachers because they believe that we UAL students must be independent, target driven and motivated, so most of the work has to be done in your own time and usually its very obvious who does work and who is not coming back next year.
It is not easy to get in into courses like art or photography or fashion but if you do it will be the best experience in your life.
If you become a student at UAL then you have access to all of those colleges. You can use their libraries or just come and study there.
People there are very friendly and helpful.
I will try to post pictures of London College of Communication and Central Saint Martin very soon.

Feel free to leave questions or comments

Monday 31 October 2011

Introduction

I am a first year student at London College of Communication. I study Media and Cultural Studies which is a very theoretical course.
I am 18 and originally from Estonia, Tallinn but the last two years I spent in College in a town called Reading which is 20 minute train drive from London. Basically I finished school there.
Here I am going to post about my student life and opportunities for students - mainly in London.
Sometimes I will ask my friends from different Universities to make posts here as well so you could see the different sides of the education in UK.
I hope this will help you make a choice in terms of your education.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments