The Process Continues

Eric (Ricky) Atkinson and Tom Hudson two of our alumni are the starting point for this staff exhibition that marks the 30th anniversary of the National Arts Education Archive (NAEA), under the auspices of Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Atkinson and Hudson are influential contributors to international art education. Their influences begin with Harry Thubron at Leeds College of Art, in the context of the Basic Design movement. Their story and that of the ‘continuing process’ (after an ICA exhibition, London 1981) is a reminder of not only our legacy, but a narrative of pedagogy for contemporary staff at the college to re-join, with their current teaching and creative practice.

College staff were asked, how important is the use of specialist collections and archives to your creative practice and teaching? In doing so, the exhibition invites all those interested or involved in art education to consider how artists, educators and art works speak to each other across time? Where do the boundaries between art object and archival relic lie? What role does collecting and collating have in artists’ practice? And, what place does a history of art-pedagogy have with contemporary practice? 

The NAEA continues to care for, order and catalogue extensive and significant collections that have formed the touchstones and turning points of visual arts and design education for more than a century. These collections that constitute a unique resource are part of a number of specialist archives in proximity to and beyond the College, information of which is very much part of this exhibition. 

Image: Tom Hudson (1959) From the Eric Atkinson Collection, by kind permission of The National Arts Education Archive (NAEA@ysp).