BACKLIT Gallery heads to London for the next instalment of our Tate Exchange programme: Art School Rules OK? with BACKLIT Gallery.
You’ll begin your journey by dressing up and stepping into the shoes of an art student, before embarking on an obstacle course of interactive, creative learning activities. Explore, create and play with a mix of experimental and traditional models of art education, which sit alongside each other in the space. Complete every activity to receive your ‘artist’ badge and become a fully-fledged ‘graduate’ of the programme.
BACKLIT’s playful re-design of the art curriculum uses different models of art education to explore ideas of accessibility and power dynamics within education. It addresses questions such as; who can access an education in the arts? Where can art education take place? And who is teaching who? The hands-on activities within the space aim to reshuffle the hierarchical structures within artistic and cultural production, questioning ideas of social organising, the conditions needed for a common space, and what it truly means to be ‘artist-led’.
If you would like to learn more about BACKLIT and the journey of our artist-led space, you can watch the film that was created for our 10-year anniversary show. Same As It Never Was will be screened in the Southwark Room throughout each day. There will also be a selection of BACKLIT archive material on display in the space, which gives insight into the role that artists have played in setting up opportunities for artist development within the region of the East Midlands.
Artists: Mo Scott, Peter Chesney, Karen Chesney, Kühle Wampe art collective (Craig David Parr, Amelia Seren Roberts, Joshua Heathcote, Dinosaur Kilby), Sian Watson Taylor, Lois Gardner Sabt, Ryan Heath, Anna Manfield.