There are two main principles for the Centre for Ideas

1. To expand the awareness of the critical discourse on art and practice, through an inter-disciplinary approach that includes historical, cultural, political and theoretical investigation.
2. To deepen awareness of the creative process through collaborative practice.

To realize these principles the Centre for Ideas must define its work in relation to:
- current debates on contemporary art practice
- the specific practice of artists and thinkers within and beyond the college
- local and global cultural concerns
- new media and i.t. developments
- cross disciplinary methods which are relevant to the whole student body of the college
- provide the basic critical vocabulary that circulates in contemporary debates

The emergence of the Centre for Ideas marks a radical departure from conventional teaching models in art institutions. It is not offering a cross disciplinary programme as an optional extra within a particular school but proposing a new common curriculum that spans the whole college. VCA is unique in its assemblage of different schools and artistic practices, the opportunity for its students to now mix and learn together in a new critical context provides an exciting departure from the institutional models that prevailed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In the past few decades a number of European art schools and American art colleges have either operated an open studio model or maintained a liberal art stream throughout their course structures. The VCA has the potential to be a world leader in art education by creating an even more open and critical model for thinking and practice.

Last month I was invited as a keynote speaker to the annual conference for the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design in Granada Spain, the one aspect of my presence that seemed to have attracted the greatest interest was my position within the Centre for Ideas. Heads and Directors from art schools in Britain were particularly impressed with the boldness and timeliness of our initiatives. It was considered to be a far wider reaching programme than anything they had yet implemented and they all expressed interest in hearing more about the history and future developments of the centre.

This interest also confirms my own personal experience. Over the past ten years I have worked as both an editor, writer and teacher. While editing the art journal Third Text and special issues of Art & Design and Photofile, working on catalogue essays for international museums or exhibitions for artists, or teaching in art colleges and universities in Britain, Australia, Europe and the United States I have observed a growing trend among artists. There is an increasing fascination with cultural symbols and media which lay at the edges of their everyday experience, and that the only way to grasp these possibilities is to work in a collaborative manner. My own writing practice has often reflected this process. I have written over 100 essays and articles on contemporary art and theory and my books, Modernity As Exile, 1993, Dialogues in the Diaspora, 1998, The Turbulence of Migration, 2000 and the forthcoming Topographics are a chronicle of my own efforts to critically engage with the cultural context of art. My most recent book was recently selected on the Critics Choice list by the American Educational Studies Association.

Present Structure

The Centre for Ideas, in its present form, is the first response to the 1998 Curriculum Audit Report and Recommendations. The report called for some fundamental and structural changes in the teaching and research culture of the College. Such changes are rarely introduced without resistance and discomfort. Nevertheless the College has implemented most of the recommendations in a very short time frame. There is now in place a course program which offers a broader understanding of artistic practices, new collaborative learning models, and an expanded introduction into cultural literacy. The development of courses that will develop a deeper facility with new media and enhanced professional skills are also being planned.

What the Centre for Ideas seeks to do is to introduce students to the changes which are occurring at both the local and global level. Students are introduced to new conceptual frameworks and critical perspectives which allow them to rethink aspects of their everyday lives as well as develop an insight into the historical development of key ideas. It will also provide an understanding of the basic vocabulary in the critical discourse that is part of their professional world. This course can be seen as a response to two key shifts in our cultural terrain. First, the impact of critical theory in contemporary criticism and more broadly within the institutional politics of art. Second, the collaborative nature of cultural production in the age of information technology.

The current structure for the first year includes The Artist in the world lectures and tutorials which are complemented by the collaborative laboratories, electives and creative investigations. This structure reflects a number of compromises between the schools and the general fear that the Centre for Ideas should not be 'too theoretical'.

The anxieties over the theoretical dimensions of the course have been allayed. Lectures and tutorials in The Artist in the World series have proved remarkable successful and both staff and students have described them as 'inspirational'. Heads of Schools have contributed excellent introductory lectures to this course. The sheer presence of the whole of the VCA's first year in the Federation hall every Wednesday is also a unique and historic moment. The atmosphere in the lecture is exciting and attendance has remained at a very high level. The introduction of tutorials to complement the lectures has been a very positive addition to the structure. It has enabled students the space in which to develop and articulate their own understanding of the key concepts. The Centre for Ideas has also benefited by having an impressive team of tutors who work in a co-ordinate manner and have provided a very solid support structure to the lecture programme.

The Reader and Course outline that was prepared for the students has proved very popular. Considerable emphasis is given to oral participation in the classroom. Written exercises, like the intellectual diary and report of a current artistic event, are devised in a way that can debunk myths about theory, and facilitate a more confident and direct tone of writing which can conceptualize the student’s own thought process. I am confident that by the end of the first year all successful students will have a clearer understanding of the context and direction of their professional development.

The early enthusiasm for the collaborative and creative components for the Centre for Ideas has proved more problematic. We have discovered that staff need to invest more time explaining the process and benefits of collaborative practices. The collaborative exercises represent a radical departure from previous modes of learning. It is natural that students seek to reproduce more familiar patterns of participation and lean back on their own disciplines. However, we need to demonstrate the importance and unique possibilities that emerge from submitting to new methods of exploring the creative world of collaborations. It is also necessary to develop new connections that can bridge the ideas and experiences in collaborative practice. Many of the staff have won national awards in their fields and performed in venues across the world. The teams who lead these collaborations have been selected both because of their own career experiences but also because of the complementary skills that they have to offer to students. For instance there are teams which include a lighting designer and a choreographer, or sound designer and filmmaker, or a sculptor and a musician. Students who are exposed to one set of experiences in one laboratory will be exposed to alternative skills in the next. As the time progresses staff are beginning to witness surprising levels of affinity between the students and greater insight into creative process.

However, the challenge of recruiting such staff, and ensuing a creative mix of students that could represent the whole college has proved very time consuming for the administrator of the Centre for Ideas. The complexity of this task, along with the general administration of the electives and creative investigations was underestimated. There has also been some confusion over the range of choices in electives amongst the students and the expression of conflicting expectations over the first year structure.

A number of steps have been taken to address these problems. A general outline of the philosophy and structure of the collaboration laboratories has been circulated to all staff and students. Kate Herbert has written a comprehensive report in an attempt to outline the specific problems and define a more efficient process of administration. The submission dates for all written work has been revised. A number of meetings between staff and students, Heads of Schools and the Curriculum Advisory group have been held to evaluate the current structure. A new model for first and second year has now been proposed.