Reflecting on the Role of Art Institutions in Schools

Autograph is always top of my list when organising a school trip. I teach A-level photography at Thomas Tallis School in South East London and taking students to galleries and museums is central to their learning experience. I’ve been visiting Autograph for many years, with and without students. It’s a place where photography is connected to wider discussions about race and representation, where photographs are understood as part of a network of forces and where visitors are engaged in a conversation about visual literacy. I can’t imagine the London photography scene without it.

As co-founder of PhotoPedagogy, I was fortunate to work with Autograph on two CPD events at Tate Exchange. The second culminated in an interactive workshop and exhibition at the gallery in February 2019. Another memorable experience was a workshop with artist Faisal Abdu’Allah in which students created maquettes in response to his Autograph exhibition The Duppy Conqueror and Other Stories. So Autograph feels like a second home for the team at Thomas Tallis.

I’ve seen some wonderful exhibitions there, including work by Lina Iris Viktor, Omar Victor Diop, Zanele Muholi and Abi Morocco Photos. Most recently, I visited the gallery to see their current exhibition I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies with my Year 12 and 13 students. Jolie Hockings, the current Engagement Curator, kindly arranged a special opening for us. They were intrigued by the images, finding several issues to debate relating to Artificial Intelligence, materiality, memory and loss. It was the perfect way to start the day, fueling the students’ imaginations and alerting them to the possibilities of photomontage.

The school’s relationship with Autograph has deepened over the past year. My colleague, Dianne Minnicucci, was the first recipient of the Visible Practice Residency, a three-year project designed “to support and expand the personal practice of art and photography teachers from global majority backgrounds, elevating the teacher as artist and artist as teacher.”

Our students benefited massively from the project, viewing Autograph’s archive, visiting artist Dafna Talmor's studio and receiving workshops from various professional photographers. Most importantly, they were able to see Dianne create a body of work and witness the process of this becoming a beautifully curated exhibition at the gallery, titled Belonging and Beyond. They also were featured in an accompanying film, shooting some Super 8 footage and reflecting on the project.

Now the rest of the art department is taking part in our own exhibition, Dialogue in the Making, supported by the gallery and Freelands Foundation. Seeing the impact of the residency on Dianne’s practice, we are all now enjoying the privilege of seeing our work displayed in a professional exhibition. For some time, we have been reflecting on the role of the teacher/artist and the experience of making things in the gaps. It’s hard to find the time and space to maintain any kind of meaningful practice with a full teaching load and family responsibilities. We have tried to carve out time in school to focus on practice-based research. We have staged exhibitions of our work but never with the professional support of a curator. This time it feels different, thanks to Jolie and the team at Autograph.

We hope Dialogue in the Making draws attention to the teacher as artist (or artist teacher), something we think is central to our shared identities and pedagogy. If we want our students to take their work seriously, it’s important that we model the process of making and thinking alongside them.

The exhibition is on display in Thomas Tallis' gallery space until 30 January. We are excited to see our work professionally displayed and hope it will give us the confidence to keep making and sharing it with our community. We're grateful for the ongoing collaboration with Autograph. We have fought hard at Thomas Tallis to maintain our commitment to the arts and collaborations like this give us hope for the future. With the EBacc set to disappear, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the crucial role that the arts play in schools and in all our lives.