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and so on – on the people teaching or being involved on that side of it.’ Gillick, for example, would have staff present work alongside students ‘in order to create a true debate and shift the potential hierarchical nature of the students to critique’. This shift of focus and intensity is also maybe related to what Corris talks about as ‘an antidote to the kind of pluralism that [...] most people feel is their lot’. When talking about working with graduate students who ‘come out with the idea that they have their own voice’, Corris says it is his job to ‘thrust them back into a situation which is much more collective’. As an example he refers to a project based on the Annotations project he did in New York in the early 70s as a way of tackling ‘what it is we have to know about theory, [or] history, for any kind of methodology to reflect on one’s practice critically. And all of a sudden we have this kind of self-organising group and students feel a lot more autonomy in terms of their intellectual interests. They’re taking a very active role in shaping the discussion so it’s not about me imparting what I know, it’s about me learning things from them and also engaging with them and becoming a co-participant.’ Here I think Corris also speaks directly to Dahn and Sander, and to the kind of collectivity and focus which forms such a vital part of how they work, while Gillick’s desire to expose staff to the same scrutiny as students has echoes of Bayrle and the courage he demonstrates in putting himself before students in a condition of not knowing. This attitude stands in stark contrast to the kind of ‘not showing’ and ‘not telling’ still so prevalent among artists teaching today, which seems to be as much about preserving a certain kind of authority as anything else. Gillick agrees that this is indeed the case, and for good reason, because as he says: ‘You could have a breakdown of authority. I mean just moral authority or just authority in the loosest, weakest sense you know.’ While there may be a tendency to see these interviews as dividing along cultural lines, the underlying themes and interests are not so easily divided out and, as is probably evident by now, nor are the individual voices which speak to one another, irrespective of cultural differences. For now they belong together and say a number of things about teaching, the places where people teach, who they teach with, how they teach, and what helps or gets in the way of this. ❚

JOHNREARDON is an artist living and working in London and an AHRC fellow at Goldsmiths. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changeswill be published by Ridinghouse, London in November.

Jaki Irvine

■ Educational dream-grief I’ve been reading Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, 1971, and speaking with friends, artists, a curator. Over the past few years we developed a healthy respect for our respective perspectives and experiences, working together with students to find adequate ways of thinking about

making, showing and writing about art. She eyed him with curiosity. He stood and endured reality. He’s telling me how he has just been shafted by the institution – another in the steady curve of decisions that are dragging the fine art course we’ve been involved with further and further from the difficult inspirational thing we worked so hard to build up. . . ‘I like things,’ she said. He nodded. ‘You’re a real artist. It’s beautiful.’ ‘Mr Orr is expert with tangibles’, the proprietor put in, toneless, speaking from the left elbow. We agree that there is a reign of mediocrity and profound managerial ignorance of visual art, shored up by the bureaucratisation of art education. ‘Listen, I remember’, Heather said suddenly. ‘Of course, it was before The Break, that’s why it’s all mixed up in my mind. You dreamed, I mean, you thought you dreamed things that came true. Didn’t you? And the doctor was making you do more and more of it, and you didn’t want him to, and you were looking for a way to get out of Voluntary Therapy with him without getting clobbered with Obligatory.’ Her hours were spread so thinly across the week for the same pay that it stopped being viable. ‘See, I do remember it.’ As a more experienced practitioner, another friend was replaced by a younger colleague when the institution found it legally impossible to avoid issuing a contract. ‘See, I do remember it.’ Under the guise of cuts and budgetry restraints ... clients facilitated ... a new phase ... corporate smiles all round. ‘No. Outgrew ’em,’ Orr said, and laughed. She also laughed. ‘What did you do about the dreams?’ ‘Oh ... went on dreaming.’ ‘I thought you could change the world. Is this the best you could do for us – this mess?’ ‘It’ll have to do,’ he said. He would have preferred less of a mess himself, but it wasn’t up to him. And at least it had her in it. He lost his post without receiving any notification. The new timetable was drawn up and he wasn’t on it. ... she glanced over at the Alien. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes,’ Orr said to his employer as he went for his raincoat. ‘Take evening,’ the Alien said. One by one, we jumped or got pushed. ‘Thank you very much’, Orr said, and shook hands with his boss. The big green flipper was cool in his human hand. Recently I found myself agreeing to give feedback to a couple of young artists, outside any formal educational structure. Hmmm, not my usual thing, but I find myself unable to suggest they sign up for something I have, at least for now, lost faith in. There are others involved – an artist, curator, critic. I am hopeful that the language we find will help us think and see more clearly if we’re careful and unbounded. He went with Heather into the warm, rainy afternoon of

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