a
-
n
the
artists
information
company
v
44
signpost
diy art School: learning without education
DIyArt School (DIyAS) is apeer-ledprojectmadeupof
graduates fromthe class of 2012. It is part research,
part social experiment, part art club. Thegroupwas
founded to support eachother tobecome creative
independents; formalisingour ownagenda.
We meet every monday at our HQ at the lionel Dobie project in central
manchester. We work on collaborative projects (Chalet residency/merzbarn/
manchester & rennes exchange) as well as supporting each other’s individual
practices. We do it because the transition from art school to the real world is
brutal and we need each other right now.
DIYAS is more of a fourth year to art school. I set it up because I
wasn’t ready for an MA but I also wasn’t finished with education. If
I do go on to do an MA I want to be really thoughtful about it and
give my practice a chance to breathe before heading back into an
institution. Sometimes, people do an MA because they are stuck or
need a platform to take their practice forwards; we wanted to see
what we could do by ourselves through broadening our networks
and increasing our opportunities, while having each other’s backing
and a structure that adds a backbone to the experience.
I instigated DIYAS because I was struggling with my degree show
project. A lot of the language used at art school was about resolution
– ‘resolve your ideas’, ‘resolve your practice’ – and I really struggled
with that. The weight of the word led me to a block, so I created the
pitch for DIY Art School as my degree show project because I needed
to buy myself another year. I was able to utilise the platform of my
degree show to sell the alternative model from within the institution.
This led to being approached by the Lionel Dobie Project and being
taken in under their year-long research project into curatorial
practice. That gave me the support and, importantly, a physical base
to move the project on.
We launched DIYAS with the Lionel Dobie Project and managed to
attract a broad spectrum of graduates; mostly from Manchester School
of Art but also from the Bolton (Interactive Arts, Three dimensional
design, Illustration and Animation, History of Art, Fine Art &
Textiles).
What if you don’t want to
continue in higher education,
but you still want to learn?
All over the country there are
artist-led spaces for critical
debate and conversation, peer-
to-peer support and networking
opportunities.
Marcelle Holt
,
founder of Manchester’s DIY
Art School, describes how this
alternative art school supports
recent graduates.
Marcelle Holt.