City Lit’s Centre for Advanced Practice is where you can find advanced courses from across all subject areas in Visual Arts.
In a recent chat, we spoke with Raz Barfield, who leads Advanced Practice at City Lit. He explained the valuable skills students learn and highlighted how these courses stand apart from typical University or Higher Education offerings.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to develop the Centre for Advanced Practice at City Lit?
My background is in Higher Education. I was previously a director of international academic development, and a professor of transnational creative education, focusing on partnership development and course design at UG and PG level. So, the prospect of helping to build a completely new programme area dedicated to advanced creative practice in the visual arts, from the ground up, right here in London, appealed to me. I joined City Lit when Advanced Visual Practice (AVP) was created, and I’ve been here ever since!
Your book might be rubbish. In fact, it almost certainly will be rubbish, because first drafts usually are.
What skills and knowledge do students gain and how does this prepare them for real-world opportunities?
The Centre for Advanced Practice was established by consolidating higher-level extended courses from various divisions within the School of Visual Arts. This initiative creates a dedicated program aimed at nurturing students' autonomy and self-assurance as practitioners. It also serves as a platform for advancing into autonomous creative work or professional roles within the creative sectors. Despite its significant contributions to national culture, economy, and well-being, the visual arts field offers limited conventional employment opportunities. Professionals in this field often need to be resourceful and innovative in seeking or crafting their own chances, just as they are in their artistic endeavours.
This is why AVP (Advanced Visual Practice) incorporates elements of professional practice into its extended courses, as well as standalone workshops. Covering a wide array of crucial subjects, we delve into approaches for presenting exhibition proposals to galleries, effectively showcasing artwork to the public, navigating the process of applying for funding, promoting oneself, and articulating one's artistic work in writing. These aspects often lack comprehensive coverage elsewhere. To illustrate, a common sentiment among many MA graduates is that they possess the necessary technical skills, yet they struggle with initiating their careers on a professional level. Our objective is to actively address and rectify this issue.
Why is it important that all Advanced Visual Practice courses are taught by practicing professional artists and designers?
All our tutors are practicing artists and designers. Many are researchers and writers. This contributes to the learning experience of our learners in many ways: tutors’ experience and expertise feeds into the structure and content of courses – what is taught and why it’s relevant. Tutors bring the benefit of real-world experience, of creating, exhibiting, promoting, selling, working to commission, and so on, and this means they are teaching from a position of having that direct experience, which always beats hypothetical conversations. They know and advise students on the most useful resources and contacts for them and can advise them on where to go next. Progression advice is an important aspect of our courses. .
What kind of support and guidance is provided to students from tutors at City Lit?
Our long courses are team-taught. This means every student gets the benefit of advice, insight, and experience from a range of tutors, each of whom bring different perspectives, processes and concerns from their individual practice and experience. This means that they are not only exposed to a wide range of intellectual and critical considerations, but also advice on technical skills, handling materials, and adding that bit of professional polish to their work. Students receive advice and support through the teaching in each session, as well as through tutorials, group critiques and tutor and peer feedback. It’s also important to remember that, as artists and designers, we learn as much from our peers as we do from tutors, and for many students it’s the sense of collaboration and working together as part of a community of practice that keeps bringing them back to study with us.
How do industry professionals contribute to AVP students' development?
Increasingly on our long courses, we invite industry professionals in as guest speakers to talk to the students. Recently, for example, we have had commissioning editors, heads of design agencies and a number of currently exhibiting artists come in to advise students on a range of professional practice topics. These include how to present your work to publishers, compiling your portfolio to promote yourself to best effect, working with curators and galleries… These guests are always very generous with their time and their advice, and (depending on the type of subject specialism) sometimes provide project briefs or open up competitions for our students to enter. We also have partnerships with galleries and artist-run cooperatives where students take over a venue for a day and work on a pop-up show, for some intensive real-world experience of collaboration, or learn about the practicalities of setting up and running studios. Across the board, at the advanced level, the focus is on supporting students to develop independence and professionalism.
How do Advanced Practice courses compare to University/Higher education courses?
We pitch our advanced courses more or less at degree entry level, in terms of the intellectual content and critical debate. For our two-year or three-year courses, that means students complete with a broadly similar experience to a BA, albeit without the formal qualification, but also minus the substantial financial burden that precludes many from Higher Education. Every year many students from our long courses go on to study at master’s level, which, in itself, is evidence of the level of the courses, and the capabilities of students who complete them. It’s important to us, as an institution, that we offer opportunities for students who face barriers to learning, whether financial, or to do with personal circumstances, or lack of prior educational attainment. We’re about transforming lives.
What opportunities are there for students after completing an AVP course?
Higher education is one route, which many take, especially from our Foundation course, while others go on to set up their own businesses as designers, illustrators, jewellery-makers or whatever. A great many choose to stay with us and do more of our advanced courses – sometimes even while practicing professionally – because the experience of working with peers in a community of practice is so supportive and continues to offer opportunities for collaboration and personal/professional growth.
Could you share some examples of opportunities that students have pursued after completing AVP courses at City Lit?
Just this year, we have had students setting up their own businesses while still on their courses; we’ve had several students offered places on degree courses, including BA Textiles at Chelsea, BA Animation at Ravensbourne, MA Curating and Public Programmes at London South Bank and Whitechapel, and MA Fine Art at the Royal College of Art; one of our students has won a national award for authoring and illustrating her own children’s book; we’ve had students win competitions for permanent public art installations in London… It’s brilliant, but it’s not unusual: every year, the list of student successes in AVP is remarkable.
The AVP long advanced courses culminate with an exhibition at a Central London venue. Could you share more details about this?
We celebrate the achievements of students on our long courses with an exhibition. Usually, although not always, this is at the end of the course, but the timing isn’t so important, because the exhibition is a learning opportunity in its own right: a chance to let go of your work and see it objectively, perhaps. Many of the shows take place the City Lit Gallery, in Covent Garden, while others (usually the larger courses) are in external venues. Most years, students also organise their own shows in spaces in they’ve found and negotiated. Either way, it’s a great opportunity for students to show off their work in public, to invite family and friends, or maybe, if they’ve acted on the advice received in the professional practice elements of their courses, agents and collectors.
What advice would you give to new or returning students that wish to progress onto the Art & Design Foundation course?
Prepare to be challenged! Prepare to let go of your existing ideas, and to encounter new ones. Prepare to re-examine and reassess what you thought you knew. Prepare to work hard, and to struggle at times – struggle is good, because creativity emerges out of wrestling with restrictions. Prepare to be set in a new direction and end up doing something you’ve maybe never considered before. Foundation is often, rightly, described as the most exciting period of your life as a visual artist, because you see everything with new eyes, and a whole new world of possibilities opens up – in direct proportion to your efforts! Also, unlike other colleges, for the reasons I mentioned above, about supporting students with barriers to learning, we run a Pre-Foundation course, for people who maybe don’t yet have a portfolio, or need a more gradual introduction to a creative education. It’s perfect for anyone who, like many of our students, wants to change direction in their life.
Finally, when your book is finished, you can think about getting your book published, or publishing it yourself. But that’s a whole different subject.
Good luck!
Centre for Advanced Practice
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City Lit’s Centre for Advanced Practice is where you can find advanced courses from across all subject areas in Visual Arts. In many cases, this means well established courses of a year or longer, with outstanding reputations for preparing students for study at Bachelors or Masters level.
