One of the great joys of leaving my post as a senior manager in a British university 6 years ago was the freedom to take up some of the many invitations I had been receiving for years to visit China and offer masterclasses and lectures to university students and staff.
六年前，我辞去英国一所大学高级经理的职务，最大的乐趣之一就是可以自由地接受多年来我收到的众多邀请中的一些访问中国，并为大学生和教职员工提供大师班和讲座。
I did not take long to consider the offer of a Visiting Professorship from Nanjing University of the Arts before accepting; it is always a joy to visit this city. My Masterclasses are regularly oversubscribed and have ranged from the technically-based (the application of textiles techniques to metals or approaches to creating patinated vessels) to those which require a more abstract philosophical approach (constructing a narrative in jewellery). Each offers its own challenges to Chinese students and each provides immense satisfaction when seemingly difficult thinking and making tasks are ultimately solved by the creation of striking, individual and utterly unique objects.
我很快就考虑了南京艺术学院的客座教授职位，然后就接受了。参观这座城市总是令人愉快的。我的大师班经常超额报名，范围从基于技术的（纺织技术在金属上的应用或制造生锈容器的方法）到需要更抽象的哲学方法（在珠宝中构建叙事）的课程。 每个项目都给中国学生带来了自己的挑战，当看似困难的思考和制作任务最终通过创造引人注目的、个性化和完全独特的物品来解决时，每个项目都提供了巨大的满足感。
For me jewellery has always been one of the most intriguing and satisfying of the arts. I don’t mean here jewellery as high-street product but rather jewellery as art object. In this we have an artform which is normally small, portable, eminently wearable, each with its own story. Sometimes that story is untold and might relate to the provenance of the materials or the history and personality of the wearer, the buyer, the maker, the place. At other times, the story is overt and deliberate; this is jewellery which has something to say for itself, might have a message for the viewer as well as the wearer, often uses symbols, signs and metaphors, or may have a political or social point to make in the same way that much fine art has today. In fact, this kind of jewellery is much more closely related to the fine art you might come across in a gallery than the stuff you buy on the high street or the shopping mall.
对我来说，珠宝一直是最有趣和最令人满意的艺术之一。 我在这里指的不是作为商业产品的珠宝，而是作为艺术品的珠宝。在这种情况下，我们有一种艺术形式，通常体积小、便于携带、非常适合佩戴，每一种都有自己的故事。 有时，这个故事是不为人知的，可能与材料的来源或佩戴者、买家、制造商、地点的历史和个性有关。在其他时候，这个故事是公开的、经过深思熟虑的。这种珠宝本身就有话要说，可能向观看者和佩戴者传达某种信息，经常使用符号、标志和隐喻，或者可能像当今许多美术一样具有政治或社会观点。事实上，这种珠宝与您在画廊中可能遇到的美术品的关系比您在商业街或购物中心购买的珠宝更密切。
As it happens, that was the theme of my most recent Masterclass in November last year. Narrative jewellery is not a common trope in the Chinese contemporary scene, so I was (as usual) asking my students to think in a different way to normal, to become more internationally aware in their outlook, their research, their quest for visual, wearable solutions. We started by walking through the cityscape, looking at our surroundings with much more acuity than ever before, asking each other questions about things we had passed by a thousand times before, noting the relationships of buildings to each other, to where street furniture and artefacts were placed, to the patterns made by overhead cabling, doorways, door knockers and handles, how scooters and bicycles were stacked next to each other, and searching for interesting things among the discarded detritus of city life.
碰巧，这是我去年 11 月最近一次大师班的主题。叙事珠宝在中国当代场景中并不常见，所以我（像往常一样）要求我的学生以不同于正常的方式思考，在他们的观点、他们的研究以及他们对视觉、可穿戴解决方案的追求上变得更加国际化。我们首先在城市景观中漫步，比以往更加敏锐地观察周围的环境，互相询问我们以前经过一千次的事物，注意建筑物之间的关系，街道设施和文物的放置位置，架空电缆、门道、门环和把手的图案，踏板车和自行车如何并排堆放，并在城市生活废弃的碎片中寻找有趣的东西。
One person’s rubbish might be someone else’s treasure.
一个人的垃圾可能是别人的宝藏。
On these occasions, although I don’t stop students taking photographs, I encourage them to draw as a way of recording what they see. Not only does drawing require them to look more carefully, but the act of drawing actually enforces the visual message much more effectively and they remember much, much more of the experience. We all do, when we draw.
在这些情况下，虽然我不会阻止学生拍照，但我鼓励他们通过绘画来记录他们所看到的东西。 绘画不仅要求他们看得更仔细，而且绘画的行为实际上更有效地强化了视觉信息，并且他们记住了更多、更多的经历。当我们画画时，我们都会这样做。
The rubber gloves and plastic bags which I had issued were put to use and back in the studio we disinfected our finds, laid them out, recorded them by drawing and photographing them, made the first rudimentary visual arrangements of them and then began to imagine what their individual stories might be. We developed narratives by and about each other, and began to make small constructions from our finds. I always find it so interesting how students who have never been required to think this way before ultimately rise to the occasion and embrace new ways of thinking and doing.
我发放的橡胶手套和塑料袋得到了使用，回到工作室后，我们对发现的物品进行了消毒，将它们摆好，通过绘画和拍照来记录它们，对它们进行了初步的视觉安排，然后开始想象它们各自的故事可能是什么。我们互相讲述彼此的故事，并开始根据我们的发现构建小型结构。我总是觉得很有趣的是，以前从未被要求以这种方式思考的学生最终会适应这种情况并接受新的思维和做事方式。
This introduction was on one level a bit of fun and something of an “icebreaker” for the project, but it served to set the tone and establish a frame of mind, preparing students to break free of the constraints of the normal didactic teaching which they are used to. While that is not a bad thing in itself, for those who are thinking about studying abroad it is a mindset they need to cultivate if they are to make the most of the opportunities which study in an international context has to offer.
这个介绍在某种程度上有点有趣，有点像项目的“破冰者”，但它为学生定下了基调，建立了一种心态，让学生准备好摆脱他们习惯的正常教学的限制。虽然这本身并不是一件坏事，但对于那些正在考虑出国留学的人来说，如果他们想充分利用国际背景下学习所提供的机会，那么他们需要培养一种心态。
There is no need to describe the actual processes on a step by step basis here but, when I run a class of this sort, I know now that there is always a point where I become convinced that the project is going to fall apart, when students’ previous cultural experiences have not prepared them for the demands I am making. On one early occasion at a different university a member of staff told me very politely that it was utterly impossible for Chinese students to think or create as I was asking, that individual creativity is the result of being told what to do rather than lateral or speculative thinking. Just at the point when I began to believe that she might be right and I had made a terrible mistake in offering this class, almost as if by magic, the collective penny seemed to drop and in a wonderful tidal wave of creativity, exciting and thoughtful visual solutions were being developed all round the studio.
这里没有必要一步一步地描述实际的过程，但是，当我开设这样的课程时，我现在知道，当学生以前的文化经历没有让他们为我提出的要求做好准备时，我总是确信这个项目将会失败。早些时候，在另一所大学，一位教职员工非常礼貌地告诉我，中国学生完全不可能按照我的要求进行思考或创造，个人创造力是被告知要做什么的结果，而不是横向或思辨性思维的结果。就在我开始相信她可能是对的，而我在提供这门课程时犯了一个可怕的错误时，几乎就像变魔术一样，集体的钱似乎掉了下来，在奇妙的创造力浪潮中，令人兴奋和深思熟虑的视觉解决方案正在整个工作室中开发出来。
The subjects which students generate generally range from personal experiences, childhood influences, dreams, travel, the likes and dislikes of daily experience. What we might describe as “personal issues” seldom manifest themselves, but during my most recent Masterclass, after a lot of hesitation and the disapproval of some classmates, a student felt brave enough to propose developing an idea which revolved around her very personal experiences of the physical monthly manifestations of growing up as a young woman. Interestingly, the initial astonishment and disapproval of classmates slowly turned into positive curiosity, active discussion and ultimately, approval of the finished work. The original shock had been caused, not only by her talking openly about such a personal subject, but actually being prepared to do so with a male professor. Of course, for a Westerner using a subject like this in an artwork is nothing unusual and would not provoke anything more than a mild frisson. Tracey Emin has become an international art superstar partly through exactly that sort of personal exposure, but I find that in China there are generally still cultural reservations about some subjects and quite understandably so.
学生创作的主题通常包括个人经历、童年影响、梦想、旅行、日常经历的好恶。我们所说的“个人问题”很少会表现出来，但在我最近的大师班上，经过一番犹豫和一些同学的反对后，一名学生勇敢地提出了一个想法，围绕着她作为一名年轻女性成长过程中每月的身体表现的个人经历。有趣的是，同学们最初的惊讶和不认可慢慢变成了积极的好奇、积极的讨论以及最终对完成的作品的认可。最初的震惊不仅是因为她公开谈论这样一个私人话题，而且实际上还准备与一位男教授这样做。 当然，对于西方人来说，在艺术品中使用这样的主题并不罕见，只会引起轻微的颤抖。翠西·艾敏 (Tracey Emin) 成为国际艺术巨星的部分原因正是在于这种个人曝光，但我发现在中国，人们普遍对某些主题仍存在文化保留，这是可以理解的。
Supporting students when they want to explore issues like this as part of their advanced artistic education might seem to run the risk of being accused of a form of cultural imperialism.
当学生想要探索此类问题作为其高级艺术教育的一部分时，为他们提供支持似乎可能会面临被指责为某种形式的文化帝国主义的风险。
I have always tried to avoid that and I hope that I have been sensitive to cultural differences in any of the lectures and classes I have delivered. It is not for me to try to impose a specifically Western cultural approach or process, but rather to offer access to what I believe is an international experience. When I was a full time educator, I always reminded my staff that our job was not to turn our international students into “Little Brits” and send them home with our cultural values dominant, but rather to offer them an international experience in a Western context, which could inform their professional practice in an increasingly interconnected world. I was very aware that they brought us as much cultural value as we ever offered them. Our universities in Britain are greatly enriched by the presence of our international students.
我一直试图避免这种情况，我希望我在我所教授的任何讲座和课程中都能对文化差异保持敏感。我并不是要试图强加一种特定的西方文化方法或过程，而是要提供我认为是国际经验的机会。当我还是一名全职教育工作者时，我总是提醒我的员工，我们的工作不是把我们的国际学生变成“小英国人”，然后把他们送回家，让他们以我们的文化价值观为主导，而是为他们提供西方背景下的国际经验，这可以为他们在日益互联的世界中的专业实践提供信息。我非常清楚，他们给我们带来的文化价值与我们为他们提供的文化价值一样多。国际学生的存在极大地丰富了英国的大学。
And that, I daresay, is one of the reasons that I come to China as often as I do; there’s still so much to see, to do, and learn; so much culture to experience.
我敢说，这就是我经常来中国的原因之一。还有很多东西要看、要做、要学；这么多的文化值得体验。
