Complementary Studies

Terry's message has reminded me of my own first ventures in complementary studies. This was a separate area in those days (1970s) from Art History. My earlier experience of complementary studies when I was doing my DipAD in Newport had been really positive. We had sessions on such things as philosophy, classical music, film and Egyptian Poetry, a whole term I remember was devoted to learning to listen to the differences between Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler. We were also introduced to Debussy and impressionist music, all achieved by a man with a box record player lifting the stylus up and down onto the records as he tried to get certain passages across to us. He must have destroyed his entire collection of classical music in an attempt to educate us children of the 60s. 

I still need to unpick my thoughts on complementary/critical/contextual/theoretical studies but today's not the day especially as I'm thick with cold. So back to Terry's observations. 

In complementary studies around 1975ish, there was a core team consisting of Dave Williams, Glynn Thompson, Max Farrer, Jane Storr, Jane Bostock and Graham Savage (these are the one's I remember, I'm sure there were others) and the department had a pretty lively political/sociological agenda. They worked across all the college courses and brought staff in from those courses to help deliver their programme. 

Complementary studies in those days was dominated by practical political and social concerns. Practical in the sense of exposure to what was out there in the real world. I took sessions myself at one point, these must have been available to be taught by all staff working at the college during that time; part-timers as well as full-timers. Goff Oddy who was head of graphics, used to take a walking and camping trip. I can remember all sorts of things ranging from vegetarian cooking to African fabric tie-dye techniques. The central issue was that complementary study was about raising awareness. There was also a concern to make the students understand that everything had political and social ramifications. For instance I was asked to take a group of students, (I cant remember for how many days now, but it was probably for four) and get them to experience how the ‘powers’ behind the city operated. I looked at what we could get into legally and found several places that Leeds’ citizens were able to go and observe the processes of law and civic decision making in operation. We spent the time first of all visiting the Civic Hall and sitting in on council deliberations, (you could research beforehand what was open to the public) which students were initially really bored by, until issues came up that they realised could effect them. We sat in on planning as well as education debates. At one point we were escorted out of the room because one councillor objected to our presence and then were re-escorted back in again, once it had been pointed out by my local Kirkstall councillor that we were within our rights to be there.  

We then spent days in the law courts sitting in the public benches and most interestingly in the local magistrates court. Students had not been aware of the old fashioned etiquette of the law courts or power of magistrates to make decisions. Most of the magistrate’s court cases involved young people their age, so the students empathised with those being brought before the dock. What came across was a huge difference in class and power. Barristers and magistrates had a subtle command of both legal jargon and the English language, it was therefore easy for them to ‘trip up’ the people in the dock or make them look foolish, which they often did. Magistrates seemed to exude middle class righteousness and their main role seemed to be to make sure the people who were in front of them knew their place.

The fact we were there made people feel uncomfortable. These were their territories and usually they had the place to themselves. The only other people we met were reporters or relatives and friends of the accused.

I found the sessions really enlightening, but some of the ‘trades’ lads (these were students doing courses like painting and decorating) thought it was all a waste of time. The more thoughtful students however made the connection and in a deeper and more concrete way than teaching them Foucault. Years later I would return to teaching ‘Theoretical and Contextual’ studies as it would become; theory in the late 90s playing a vital part in the art college new degree level curriculum. However in all the lectures I have given since those mid 70s times, I never saw again that dawning of awareness of the reality of class difference and power that I came across then.