The Civic University and Locally-Engaged Practice in Art and Design Education

‘The Millbank Atlas’ brings together researchers, students and residents to trace the neighbourhood of Chelsea College of Arts (University of the Arts London). The ongoing project creates meaning through conceptualising this local as comprised of reciprocal relations among the College and surrounding businesses, residential blocks, civil society groups, infrastructure, amenities and further aspects of this built and natural environment.

This paper considers how the creative happenings and artifacts that comprise the Atlas help to reinforce relations among the College and other local communities. We aim to understand the potential of live learning in the form of locally-engaged projects to produce a ‘community of communities’. This includes the student body and its high number of international students. Their transient status contrasts with Millbank’s large population of senior citizens. What the students and seniors share is an intercultural and intergenerational proximity to local issues that demand attention out of necessity, owing to rampant cuts in social services.

Our paper proposes the art and design university as a space for education that addresses these and other local issues. We will consider this with reference to a growing body of practice-based research on ‘civic education for civil society’. [1] Central here are examples of alternative schools and curricula that piggyback on more formal institutions. [2] We will consider this dynamic with reference to Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger’s understanding of communities of practice to appreciate the potential and complexity of learning environments for fostering more empowered, heterogeneous and resilient communities. [3] The live projects that drive the civic university address real-world needs, not of a distant other but of our neighbours and neighbourhood. Key here are the day-to-day interactions through which seniors/students/staff together produce Millbank as a particular part of London and how through coordinated action, creativity can enrich our shared experience.