We are please to launch a working paper arising from the event in April 2025: Civic and Place: Exploring the Role of the Civic in Art and Design which brought together researchers, educators, practitioners and community stakeholders to examine how art and design can shape, sustain, and animate civic life.The paper is co-authored by:Dr Rowan Bailey, Director of the Centre for Cultural Ecologies in Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield.Evelyn Wilson, co-Director of  National Centre for Academic and Cultural ExchangeDr Rhiannon Jones, Associate Professor (Civic Practice). Head of Civic and Communities, University of Derby.Professor...

Last year the Design Council launched its Skills for Planet Mission: to upskill 1 million designers with green design skills by 2030. Given that students are the designers of tomorrow, as HE agenda setters we have a key role to play in providing them with the critical green skills they need to design responsibly.These skills are outlined in the Skills for Planet Blueprint. Whether you have started on your journey to embed green design skills into your curricula or not, the Blueprint is a resource that can help you get started or validate your existing work. We are...

Free Download here The FACE Race Handbook is a vital resource delivering cultural competency for our allies, whilst confronting anti-Blackness in our art and design institutions. Acknowledging that white privilege and race are rarely spoken about in the workplace and beyond, FACE encourages its allies to interrogate privilege and racial bias through regular meetings with Black and racially minoritised FACE colleagues. This practice has facilitated a growing network of culturally confident educators evolving together in anti-racist work that centres recruitment, progression, curriculum and culture. Compiled by FACE Members and Associates up and down the country, The FACE Race Handbook communicates...

The education landscape across level 3 qualifications that lead into Higher Education is being reformed. UAL are hosting a webinar specifically for Higher Education Institutions to share: Details of these reforms. Actions being undertaken by UALAB. How Higher Education Institutions can prepare for these changes. The webinar is aimed at HEIs that take learners with UAL Level 3 qualifications onto their undergraduate programmes. The information will be particularly relevant for staff members involved in the recruitment of, and entry requirements for, learners joining their courses. The webinar will be hosted remotely via Zoom and is entirely free of charge. We...

This blog is the second in a series and has kindly been provided byVanessa CorbyProfessor Theory, History and Practice of ArtYork St John UniversityThe State and art & design education in England: Part One, ‘Rip-Off Degrees’, the poverty of expectations for the discipline and neoliberalismWhen I say there is a poverty of expectations for art and design educational outcomes in this country, I’m not saying anything that the discipline doesn’t already know. The present impoverishment of the National Curriculum and its effects were foretold in Bob and Roberta Smith’s Letter to Michael Gove MP, 25 January...

CUMULUS CONFERENCE DETROIT 2022

Written by Detroit Sustainability Business Network (SBN)

Cumulus Holds Global Design for Adaptation Conference in Detroit at the College for Creative Studies. Attended by Designers, Educators, and Researchers from Around the World working Toward Creating a Sustainable and Humane FutureCumulus, a global association of art and design education and research, held its annual conference, Design for Adaptation in Detroit Nov. 1-4 at the College for Creative Studies. This marks only the second time in its 30-year history that the conference was in North America.Cumulus connects 350 member institutions across 63 countries...

Cultures of Place, a new festival programme from the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Huddersfield. Working in collaboration with Temporary Contemporary and Kirklees Council to deliver a range of events drawing on research from across the school including: art, architecture, creative writing, cultural studies, design, English literature, fashion, film, history, media, music, performance and textiles. This will run from 24 June – 4 July. Everything is free to attend, and projects range from music made with the light from stars and workshops showing you how to build an electrical circuit into fabric to exploring the canal...

20th Anniversary Edition The Journal of Visual Art Practice marked its 20th anniversary in 2021, and its current issue (Vol. 20, Issue 4) offers both reflection on the journal’s rich history, but also its forward going vision and commitment to an international and diverse approach. The issue includes, for example, reflections from the founding editor Iain Biggs, and a survey article on contemporary drawing pedagogy by Howard Riley. Looking ahead, the issue also includes a review of Lauren Fournier’s book on autotheory as feminist practice, and an essay by artist and Nahem Shoa, whose exhibition, Face of Britain, brought together...

Arts and Design Expertise and Evidence Base: how can we use it? CHEAD's policy roundtable series with the All Party Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group, Realising Art and Design Research in Policy Making Decisions, has published the first in a series of reports summarising how we can use the art and design evidence base in policy making. The purpose of this session was to explore current issues contributing to the underutilisation of existing Art and Design Research and how we can develop existing case studies flexibly to ensure that wider application of these examples works efficiently and reaps the benefits....