Learning to become an artist : ethnographic reflections on art school and studying Fine Art within a university-based contemporary art practice

Abstract

The thesis argues that becoming an artist today is inextricably linked with having studied art in a higher educational setting. The research is based upon ethnographic fieldwork within an undergraduate Fine Art program at a University-based Art School in Britain.

Focus is given to the perspective of art-students and their reflective sense of self as creative individuals in relation to the institutional structures of art socialisation in a pedagogical setting. In doing so, the thesis ethnographically examines the learning and meaning-making that occur in (and around) an Art School: how students’ own practice, and sense of themselves as artists (and persons) develop in relation to the pedagogical setting and informal aspects of art socialisation. The thesis takes shape as an ethnographic exploration of how Fine Art students experience and conceptualise being in Art School: Detailing aspects of the process by which they come to understand and articulate their practice through informal and formalised arenas of learning and socialisation within and in relation to the institutionalised environment of a Fine Art education.

The thesis positions itself within and contributes to a bourgeoning interest in institutionalised forms of art socialisation, the anthropology of art and artists, as well to research on professional socialisation, learning, and education more broadly. Specifically, it contributes to thematic concerns such as the paradox of institutionalised creativity, conceptualisations of artistic practice and freedom, self-formation, communities of practice, informal socialisation, community formation and collaborative circles. The research ethnographically notes the continued influence of Romantic ideas and myths surrounding the figure of the artists among art students, as they are appropriated and actualised in their lives, and how these exist at times uneasily within the increasingly research-orientated and academicized environment of university-based art education.