Messy Democracy: The Art School as War Machine

This paper offers a critical case study of an educational collaboration between the artists’ collective @.ac (www.attackdotorg.com), and the staff and students of the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK, 9th April - 2nd May 2018 (fig. 1). This pedagogical experiment saw the university gallery, Hanover Project, transformed into an autonomous art school whose curriculum and agenda was controlled entirely by the university’s students for the duration of the exhibition. This practice-based research project attempted to make visible the concealed power relationships operating implicitly within the teaching of art and design, and also participatory art projects. This artificial ‘democratisation’ of the art school within the institutional frame of the neoliberal university highlighted the extent to which the marketisation, commodification, and financialization (McGettigan, 2013) of HE art education have de-democratised the art school.