The academic myth

At the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise (LCACE) we are told all the time, particularly by small arts organisations, that universities are impenetrable, that artists are mis-understood, that any kind of joint working involves a considerable amount of form filling, and that artists are not welcomed or valued in academia. Well, times are indeed a-changing here, and a significant role for the arts in Higher Education (and, indeed, vice versa) is being advocated by an increasing number of bodies nationwide, of which LCACE is one. We are a partnership of eight London-based universities whose aim is to encourage collaborative working between Higher Education and the arts and cultural sectors.

 We hear much these days about the value of ‘knowledge exchange’. The initial model was predicated on a science and technology one, of knowledge acquired or developed within a university being exploited commercially outside by way of spin-out companies or patents. However, there are some parallel examples in the arts: for example, a theatre company founded by an academic from Royal Holloway, Analogue Theatre, produced a piece of devised theatre, funded in its development stages by LCACE. This has just triumphed with its first multi-award-winning play ‘Mile End’ at Edinburgh this year. It is about to embark on a tour; I doubt very much whether profit was either a motive or will be realised.
What is increasingly the case is a more collaborative approach in which academics from universities develop ideas with arts organisations, so that the knowledge exchange is very much a two-way process. Such is the fascinating work of Dr Mark Miodownik, a material scientist from Kings College London, which has led to his working on provocative installations with Tate Modern, the Hayward Gallery and the Wellcome Collection, to name but a few. Or Suzy Willson, a Fellow at Queen Mary and Founder of the Clod Ensemble, whose ‘Performing Medicine’ project brings communication skills from performance into medical training: again, LCACE funded the development stages of this.
Academic R&D is not the same as artistic R&D initially, neither in its aims nor in its timeframe, but there are an increasing number of opportunities funded by the the Arts and Humanities Research Council such as collaborative doctoral awards or knowledge transfer fellowships, to encourage such work. For example, one student is working for her PhD studying different productions of Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’, jointly supervised by Glyndebourne and Queen Mary, and another supervised by Shakespeare’s Globe and KCL doing a comparative study of audiences at the Globe now and in Shakespeare’s day.
LCACE has also supported an extensive piece of work that three of our universities have contributed to: ‘Building Cultures’ where work initially developed by Queen Mary and Goldsmiths has been taken on by Birkbeck. This is looking at culture as a contributor to a sense of place, and has recently culminated in a conference and walkabout, jointly produced with Create Kings Cross and the Arts and Architecture Journal as part of the London Design Festival. This attracted planners, architects, artists, local government and the construction industry, and will soon result in a publication, a ‘Manifesto of Possibilities’, to inspire reflection, discussion and action on commissioning public art.
Universities are not as impenetrable as they may first appear, and when the meeting of minds works, it’s a marvellous thing to behold.