The Studio

Writing originally published for the Brighton Show: Studio 350 in 2015

The Studio

This year in Studio 350 at Brighton the level 6 students prepared in advance ahead of the start of term, designing the space for the 8 months of their final year at the university. Amongst the highlights of the year there has been a graphic design Island, an Introverts’ corner, and illustrators sat amongst the designers. Outside of the making of work, lectures, seminars, tutorials and crits, there have also been a meditation session, a cake competition, a class photograph, interviews, debates, tears and laughter, the odd bit of philosophy, construction, some records played and a live webcam recording the studio. In 2014/15 I’ve enjoyed my visits to Studio 350.

In my time teaching at the University of Brighton the first major change to the studios was in 2007 when the Graphic Design and Illustration courses replaced the old individual desks and invested in new folding tables. They were long, came in blue, red and yellow, looked like design furniture and modernized what had been a very traditional layout of the studios. There was an immediate impact upon the way students engaged with the space, especially the illustrators, as the spaces became less individual, becoming more open plan and introduced a more mobile use of the studios rather than a working space. Initially I remember the look of horror from one of the Graphic Design members of staff when Jasper Goodall and myself inserted partition dividers between the tables to help create intimacy for the illustrators – we did actually acquiesce in the end, and there were large blocks of tables organized around the room with students sat around, rather than the patchwork of short tables and pin board dividers.

There was logic to the change, at degree show time they could be easily folded away for local storage in the department rather than the cost of using external storage. They also offered a more social use of the space, reflecting the changing nature of the profession towards the digital, and being mobile. It would take a few years before students themselves took ownership of the space, to adapt the furniture for their own ends, mixing up the spaces a little to provide quieter, more private working environments.

Increasingly students did more work off site, coming in on hot days when staff where timetabled for workshops or crits. This obviously might have always been true, and there is a danger of romanticizing the studios. We did notice that studio attendance was always higher in the final year, perhaps the jeopardy of the degree mark, or as one graduate put it, they were simply dressed appropriately in level 6 to begin seriously to work. Each year group in any event has its own dynamic in how they want to engage with the space. There is usually a core group of students who set up camp and have serial attendance, in subsequent years students mixed up the large blocks of tables with single strips facing the windows to encourage more individual spaces, and most recently utilizing the sink area in Studio 350 as we saw less and less paint being used.

At the time of the original change the new tables seemed harsh especially on the illustrators, who formerly customized their spaces with sources of inspiration around them, pinning postcards and magazine cuttings about them. Sat with students during tutorials you could build a picture of their interests and possible subject matter from what surrounded them. Gradually however I noticed that over time the layout of the studios allowed for a different use of the space, encouraging newer types of work being produced, together further collaborations to take place. At other institutions I have seen the template of one table per student effect the material output of students, generally encouraging 2D only, and usually to fit the table size. This especially for illustration can slip into the cliché of what you would expect to be produced, pencils, fineliner, and watercolour renderings, little use of digital and only occasionally breaking out of these modes when in the print room.

It was during 2011/12 that I first recognized how students themselves had changed and were using very different working methods to those of mine only a few years previously. In that year student Jake Evans referred to themselves as the ‘laptop TV generation’. This came out of one of those freeform conversations when discussing how students were using their laptops in the studio. It was becoming more regular that students were generating artwork digitally, at first for print outcomes, but also increasingly more film based material, but I noticed that they were also using the laptop to store inspiration and research material, and to keep updated on social media with what was happening, and communicating that way rather than simply email. I recognized that they were using their desktops just like students in the past had used the desk dividers, as pin boards, ordering sources of inspiration from around the world.

During these tutorials I remember that at first students being initially embarrassed when I would notice that they had Facebook opened also on their desktops, but these days there is an acceptance that multiple screens are part and parcel of our daily studio activity, whether in the professional world or in the university. Not only are students adapting the studio space according to their creative practice, but in terms of tutorials, the laptop enabled a reservoir of material to show students, making for a much more interactive conversation, being able to show instantly a film clip, or an artist the student should look at. So change is not necessarily bad, and studios need some form of flexibility to meet the needs of students. It is perhaps no coincidence that in recent years work being produced in the level 6 Studio 350 have included more sculptural forms.

As a student the best studio experience that I have had was in the Stevens Building at the Royal College of Art in Kensington. In the first year I was in the famed Studio 1 on the first floor, the traditional illustration studio during a period when the Graphic Design & Illustration courses became MA Communication Art & Design. An intimate room with Individual table spaces, storage lockers, and plan chests. In an evening the desk lamps gave the studio a warm, safe feel about it – important to establish the right environment. The studios were also a mixture of years and disciplines, so you found yourself sat amongst illustrators, graphic designers, typographers, filmmakers, or artists, this added richness to the dynamic of conversations and helped to raise the critical discourse.

However what signified the atmosphere of the studio more than anything else was those who occupied it. I think that studio culture is essential, and students need to be prepared to properly engage and to use the studio as a professional would. In the past I’ve always encouraged level 6 illustrators to take ownership of the studio, to adapt the space, if necessary to even bring in furniture that suites their requirements, anything really to reflect the work production of the year group using Studio 350, to mimic as far as possible how studios work in the professional world.

David Rayson, the Professor of Painting at the RCA has often used the phrase ‘washing your dirty linen in public’ to emphasize the need for students to work at college, to share work in progress. Similarly the illustrator Marion Deuchars who I now share a studio with, at Studio 100 London always pressed upon me the importance of being in the same space as others; “…You can always see the confidence in the work of those who share spaces, rather than work from their bedrooms.”

The studio is a shared space, a communal exchange, from Andy Warhol’s Factory, to the artist Olafur Eliasson, to Heatherwick Studio at Kings Cross London, the studio becomes more than merely the place of making work, to encompass both research and knowledge production.

The studio has to be flexible, reflecting the cross-disciplinary/hybrid nature of work, to an ever-increasing expanded field of artistic production, to encompass the broad range of practices that students are identifying within illustration at Brighton. Today a diverse capacity of production is necessary, including both traditional analogue techniques to equipping students with digital, and theoretical skills.

As the nature of the studio has changed, the transition from a workshop for physical production to a space with the potential for multiple forms of creation and participation has to be anticipated. Over the past 6 years it has been interesting to observe the changing nature of Studio 350 at Brighton and how the space is being used. Enabling the collaborative interchange between Graphic Design and Illustration, but also a growing crossover into other disciplines, and creating a space that is accessible, in terms of students looking outwards beyond the immediacy of their work, to locate their audience, and engagement with the public.

© Roderick Mills