When I was studying for my PG Cert qualification in 2008, one of the tasks required me to reflect on an aspect of my teaching practice that needed development. As it happened, I had recently led a group crit with students from the MA Fine Art and Performance pathways at Wimbledon where everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong and so this task came at the perfect time. The crit was staged in the wrong space (it was a walk-through space) and I had allowed students not involved to come and go whilst a timetabling clash took a number of the presenting students out of the crit for a significant period of time, meaning they missed the presentations and critique of others in the group. All of these factors undermined the possibility of creating a safe space for the exchange of constructive criticism. But, in addition to this, I had allowed the voice of an enthusiastic student, who liked to engage in provocative argument and polemical debate to dominate the conversation. The PG Cert task allowed me to develop protocols for creating safe spaces for group critiques in which all participants had a parity of experience and would have their voices respectfully heard.
I thought about this experience whilst watching Eloise Sherrid’s film ‘Room of Silence’ (2016) in which students from Rhode Island School of Design discuss the ways in which work that explores issues of race, identity, sexuality etc. is received and discussed in group teaching situations. Often, they explain, their peers and the tutors leading the sessions do not know how to respond to the work – they either don’t have the knowledge or understand the contexts or feel reluctant to address what they regard as ‘sensitive’ issues. The students are very articulate about the failure to meaningfully critique subjects such as race and identity. Indeed, one of the contributors argues that students need to be given the tools to critique in a responsible way.
I referred to SoN’s ‘The Little Book of Big Case Studies: Faith’ (04.07.2017) in my blog post ‘Safe Spaces’ (03.06.21) and its suggestions for creating safe spaces for group discussion and critique. It recommends establishing a set of guidelines at induction, that ask students to be aware if the positions and privileges they bring and to avoid assuming the opinions and identifications of other participants. I especially like the suggestion that the tutor and students write the ground rules together at the beginning of term.
The speakers in ‘Room of Silence’ are damning of their tutor’s awareness and limited knowledge, underlining the case for continued decolonisation. Social Identity Theory would help the group to recognise each other’s social identities whilst maintaining the sense of the individual’s experience and positionality.
It was depressing to hear students say that they felt that they had to censor themselves and were wary of raising issues such as race and identity too often even if they were the core subjects of their practice. The central point of group critique surely is to create a space for the exchange of ideas, experiences and positions – to learn from one another in every sense. This should be true for the tutors as much as it is for the students.