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.
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.
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.
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.
One person’s rubbish might be someone else’s treasure.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
