This online workshop will explore certain critical undercurrents at play in the master scholar relationships. Total Art School teachers David Blamey, Eilis Searson, Matthew Cornford and Sarah Jones will read from key texts that refer to this sacred pillar of art education before opening a general discussion. References spanning Zen lessons on ‘control’, health and safety protocols in performance art, auto didacticism in the education market and sexual politics in teaching and learning environments will be unpacked in a reading group format, followed by a speculative open exchange of ideas.

The programme will be presented in two 2-3 hour sessions via Zoom. There is no task attached to this event. The outcome is, as yet, unknown. This workshop is hosted in a collaboration between PUBLICS and Another Academy, Uniarts Helsinki.

TAS is a flexible education platform for artists and designers who want to invigorate their practice with a period of challenging experimentation. In small groups we will meet with leading practitioners at their studios and at cultural hotspots in London to develop new ideas and share critical thinking.

David Blamey
Tutor in Experimental Communication at the Royal College of Art (1988-2019) and currently an AHRC PhD candidate in Fine Art at Northumbria University. Founder of the Total Art School (2019) and the British Earways online platform for artists working with sound (2019). Proprietor of independent publishing imprint, Open Editions (1997) and an internationally exhibiting artist.

Eilis Searson
Graphic designer and lecturer at University of the Arts, London and Sheffield Institute of Arts. Managed Camberwell Press (2014-17), the publishing imprint of Camberwell College of Arts. She is the proprietor of independent publisher HOLY! HOLY! HOLY! (2017-) and an annual contributor to the Artist Self Publishers Fair at the ICA, London.

Matthew Cornford
Artist, Professor of Fine Art and Programme Leader of Critical Practice at the University of Brighton. For the past 10 years Matthew has been researching the cultural history of British art schools in collaboration with John Beck. This work has been disseminated through public talks, journal articles, various publications and exhibitions.

Sarah Jones
Visiting Tutor at the Ruskin School of Art. She is a Studio Tutor on the BFA programme, and co-convenor of the DPhil Seminars. Her sculptural practice draws on legacies of minimalism and literal theatricality, embracing and ramping this up as a part of the picture marking. She enjoys listening to things.