Olivia Glasser

I presented a paper about my experience of facilitating a residency-cum-volunteer weekend in which twenty BA Interactive Arts students cooked, walked, dry-stone-walled and responded to the Merz Barn, a rural arts centre in the beautiful Langdale valley in Cumbria, one wet March weekend. Written in the style of a reflective narrative, I investigated how within slowness, spontaneity can occur, with teaching and learning opportunities arising from ‘…unexpected resources, at unexpected times’ (Ramsey & Couch, 1994).

Hit by flood and wind damage over the notorious winter of 2015 / 16, I suggested I get together a group of volunteers to help with restorative work at the Merz Barn. Through dialogue and a cross-pollination of ideas, this initial exploratory suggestion mushroomed, merging with a student’s curatorial project. The longevity of a slow, working relationship with the Merz Barn provided fertile ground for last minute, collaborative ideas generation and a working ‘between the institutional cracks’ (Smith, 2015). Furthermore, it allowed us to use an alternative residency model whose ‘partners’ consisted of staff and students as volunteers / artists, a student as curator and the Merz Barn as host organization. Promoting a mutually supportive investment of time, energy and hospitality from all parties, a catalyst for further collaborative endeavours was created.

The 2016 NSU summer session came soon after Brexit, with much debate ensuing between sessions. Currently writing my MA in Higher Education (HE) dissertation with a focus on the stance that UK HE institutions took in the lead up to the EU Referendum, I hope to present a perspective on political activism on an institutional scale.

Universities UK (UUK), and the National Union of Students (NUS) both unilaterally committed the scholars and students of Britain’s universities to the Remain side of the debate through their campaigns, creating a public-facing combined student / staff opposition to the possibility of a vote in favor of Leave. Academics questioned the educational implications of UUK’s campaign; Menon (2015) warned of the effects taking such a clear stand on such a hotly debated political issue could have on universities as centres of learning and debate, whilst Williams (2016) asked ‘...what this stance might mean for the academic freedom of individual scholars who take an opposing view’.

Interpreting these questions from the theoretical standpoint of Gert Biesta (2010) arrived at via Hannah Arendt (1958), we might ask if NUS and UUK’s actions are out of alignment with the plurality and difference they argue as inherent to education and democracy (2010), taking in to account Young’s (2000:111) analysis of Arendt’s ideas as ‘...understanding plurality rather than unity as a defining characteristic of a public’.

This is not an opportunity to go back over the arguments for either vote in the referendum, as I argue the implications of advocating for one vote over another are just as concerning for Remain-voting students as for those undecided or Leave-voting. As well as discussing the educational and democratic implications of the political campaigns, there is room to discuss political movements co-opted by those in positions of power, and in support of economic agendas.

The research focus of my recently completed MA in Higher Education (HE) was on the responsibility of HE providers to create democratic spaces of plurality in the lead up to the EU Referendum. I argued that democracy should be re-understood in terms of creating opportunities for every person to ‘act’, in an Arendtian sense (1995). That is, providing spaces which allow individuals to come in to contact with those who are not like them in order to bring about the event of democratic subjectivity (Biesta, 2006, 2009 & 2010).

I see saunas as one such space, serving as a neutral vessel, both activating and activated by the physical and psychological experiences of those who populate it. I am currently working on opening an artist-run, wood-powered sauna in Manchester. This will begin with a month-long summer-run in the outdoor area of an art space in the city. As Maitra d’sauna, I will operate the service for regular hours daily, alongside a curated programme of discussions and interventions. Following Biesta’s (2004 & 2006) paralleling of Bauman’s Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common (1995) with post-modern society, I am interested in the sauna as a space for artists to meet which is not governed by particular categories, theories, methods and beliefs of the Rational Communities they might otherwise belong to (Lingis, 1994).