Asuf’s PgCert Blog

Hahn Tapper describes Social Justice Theory where students’ identities are interwoven with each other and all of the education environments students encounter. Not all of the class and teachers share the same social status and identity and even a starting point. Societal inequalities and power are brought into the class. The primary pedagogical goal is to enact social justice and freedom, both intellectually and physically, and challenge power, and the teacher’s role is to guide and steer students. The intersectionality and individual identities are based in relation to ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class, identities students focus on as individuals and relations are developed through this commonality. I wonder how much UAL gets involved with social justice, student encounters and unlocking relationships in university life, I will research this more.

This report revealed alarming Art and Design data on undergraduate retention and attainment. I think there is an urgency to address racial retention and attainment disparities. Burke and McManus (2012) in their work ‘Art for a Few’ discusses widening participation policy to recruitment, creating inclusive, equitable and anti-discriminatory practice in Art and Design admissions. The report discussed were the whole experience from culture to the curriculum in Art and Design for a student from an ethnically diverse background can be improved. Students need to feel valued and belong to all aspects of the university, including the improvements for Art and Design pedagogies. Especially teachers need to be open to different aesthetics and approach which are different to traditional art teaching. Value of role models with having an ethnically diverse staff. 

Shades of Noir’s on Race, Peekaboo We See You: Whiteness, article on ‘Whiteness in Higher Education’ by Andrew Illman, as a White Academic he examines his own subconscious conditioning and ingrained racism, he is not a racist and is aware of his White Voice which is still carrying prejudice. The important aspect of his personal examination is that he understands the importance of the experience and perspectives of people of colour, and why these voices need to be at the forefront of change. And not his own voice, he understands his perspective will always be an interpretation of POC’s experience and carry Whiteness and privilege. With this framework, he is interested in the role and allyship in numerous ways to support and seek to challenge the prevalence of racial inequality and oppression, without leading from the front, it was a thoughtful insight from a senior white academic.SoN is a rich resource I will be using for my practice in the future, this will support me in further discussions around social justice with students and staff.

Through these resources, I have a new perspective on disability and experiences of disability. And the activism that disabled people are engaged with. What also struck me was the invisibility of a disability, how we overlook disability by visually assessing and judging people’s bodies and physical ableness. In SoN’s, Disabled People publication especially “There are many types of disabilities, such as those affect a person’s Vision, Hearing, Thinking, Learning, Movement, Mental health, Remembering, Communicating and Social relationships”. I also found the models interesting, Charity Models or tragedy, depicting disabled people as victims. And the older Religion and Moral models, depict disability as punishment by god for a sin. I hope we are beyond this, especially in Britain.

Blahovec’s interview with a black female disabled activist Vilissa Thompson was very interesting. Thompson highlighted the lack of representation of black disabled women, she successfully did this through the hashtags #DisabilityTooWhite. This found traction on Twitter and beyond. Thompson outlines, “We see people of colour being excluded from organizations when there’s a lack of diversity on the boards of disability advocacy and other service organizations. We need to pay more attention to how the world really works outside of white privilege, able-bodied privilege, or a combination of both”.

Disability is not a barrier to learning and creativity, the two artists Okka and Kim demonstrate creative art practices. Disability identity can be central to one’s practice or not. Artist Okka’s experience of chronic pain in her body during her performance and production of her solo poetry shows is unimaginable by others. She explains “Pain hides in plain sight. This assumption, that what another feels they perceive confirms absolutely: you are not in pain, is not unfamiliar to anyone who lives with chronic pain and lives the exact opposite truth. Yet the shock of distance, of misunderstandings from human beings so close to our bodies, to the truth, as we inhabit it in our bodies, can be something else entirely”. In the film of artist Kim, her deafness becomes her art and art making, she is reclaiming sound as she explains, growing up she never thought of sound as her property she thought it always belonged to others. By empowering herself with sound as material for art she explains “I wanted to use sound as a vehicle to connect with and reach a larger audience”. Kim had further challenges with communication and language with her parents, as they struggle to learn sign language and communicate with Kim, and the confusion with grammar from two languages. Kim felt ‘choked’, ‘frustrated’ and ‘boxed’ in. In my professional practice, I work with students often with invisible disabilities and no students of visual disability. My experience is with working with students with learning, thinking, mental health and anxiety disability. 

At UAL Disability services pages, I thought it was well presented, under Disability and Dyslexia. prospective and current students can access support through ‘What to Expect’, ‘Allowances’, ‘Dyslexia screening and assessment’. And specialist mentoring, software, equipment and support. 

Reading

Christine Sun Kim (2023) Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/31083172 (Accessed: May 4, 2023). 

University of the Arts London. (2023) Disability and dyslexia, UAL. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia (Accessed: May 4, 2023).

Blahovec, S. (2016) “Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson,” Huffpost, 28 June. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994?guccounter=1 (Accessed: May 4, 2023). 

Barokka (Okka), K. (2017) “Deaf-accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from touring Eve and Mary are Having Coffee while chronically ill,” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22(3), pp. 387–392. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1324778. 

Shades of Noir, Disabled People: The Voice of Many. (2020) article, ‘Evolution of Disability Models: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’ https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people

These resources outline the fluidity of religious identity. In Kwame Anthony Appiah’s lecture ‘Creed’ explains religious identity has multiple aspects, including a sense of belonging to a community and a culture, especially people of diaspora background. Individuals can be part of the religion without believing in God or the scriptures, in other words not following the belief correctly but practising the actions correctly. I was brought up in a Pakistani Muslim tradition and I identify as a Muslim heritage. Kwame explains traditions and cultures are not static, we are changing and adapting them, and today we are making new traditions.

“Every religion has three dimensions: there’s what you do—call that practice. There’s who you do it with—call that community or fellowship. And, yes, there’s a body of beliefs. The trouble is that we tend to emphasize the details of belief over the shared practices and the communities that buttress religious life”. (Appiah, Creed Lecture). 

My personal experience is as a Muslim brought up in British (Western) education institutions. I have been taught faith is culture and culture is faith, I do not share this view, I am comfortable creating culture which goes beyond the parameters of religion. I found Appiah’s explanation about the relationship between state and religion interesting, the close intersection of Church and public life in Britain. And a divide between private and public life in France. 

In my professional practice where I teach Fine Art students, students often make autobiographical work, exploring their identity in art making. Each year some students centre their work around religion, sometimes celebratory and often traumatic experiences. As teachers, it is useful for us to know about different religions so we can critically support the work and provide meaningful feedback. The example in The Little Book of Big Case Studies’ on Faith by SoN is a good one, “Aalimah believes the presentation was not facilitated well by the tutor as a result she felt under attack by a minority of classmates. Who were posing all sorts of difficult questions that Aalimah felt she was not able to answer”. This scenario was clearly not a supportive or in a safe environment.

I found the paper Modood, T., & Calhoun, C. (2015). ‘Religion in Britain interesting and insightful. “It would be helpful for academics across many fields and other crucial staff such as counsellors and librarians and managers of residences and administrators supporting courses to have better knowledge of religion in Britain (and in the world) today”. We would support and engage our students better and build trust.

Reading

Modood, T., & Calhoun, C. (2015). ‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for higher education’. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Available at:

http://www.tariqmodood.com/uploads/1/2/3/9/12392325/6379_lfhe_stimulus_paper_-_modood_calhoun_32pp.pdf (Accessed: 1 March 2022)

‘Creed’ (2016) Kwame Anthony Appiah Reith Lecture, BBC, Radio 4 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z43ds (Accessed: 1 March 2022)

Shades of Noir (2017) ‘The Little Book of Big Case Studies’ on Faith 

Shades of Noir (2023) ‘Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief’. Available at https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people (Accessed: 26 May 2023)

BBC News. (2017). How a Muslim’s suitcase became art. [online] Available

at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-41391091/how-abirmingham-

muslim-s-suitcase-became-art [Accessed 16 Oct. 2017]