“‘Just get some supplements and everyone will be fine’.
Everyone will not be fine.”
Maggie Nelson – LARB Radio Hour, 2025
My proposed intervention invites students to come on walks from the college to explore and observe the environment around Elephant and Castle and to visit local sites and institutions, reconsidering the learning/teaching environment by routinely organising activities outside of the studio space.
These activities will provide a setting for community building; activate curiosity; offer students opportunities to develop their observation and documentation skills; develop space for dynamic reflection; support a shift in expectations around the spatial organisation of sessions; and reconsider the primacy of language through a multimodal approach to learning.
Pope.L., Times Square Crawl a.k.a. Meditation Square Piece, 1978
Whilst the goal of my proposed intervention is to improve access for students with neurodiversity for whom the classroom setting isn’t always ideal, there are advantages for other students; those arriving in London for the first time can familiarise themselves with the area; and everyone can explore a different setting to engage less formally with peers and tutors.
I’m planning to introduce these activities in the first unit of year one[1], Introduction to Design for Art Direction; a section of the course where orientation is emphasised as students finding their bearings in London and Higher Education.
Why this intervention is needed
Anecdotal feedback on this unit from former students is very positive around community building activities, particularly off-site sessions. Students come from a wide range of backgrounds and have a wide range of interests; they report experiencing high stress and mental health pressures as the course goes on and have difficulty handling ambiguity whilst beginning creative processes.
Arts Student Union research[2] shows that students engaged in community activities at UAL do better academically as well as regarding their mental health.
Studies evidence that neurodiverse students can find the traditional classroom settings challenging and unsuitable for meeting their needs (Beames, Higgins and Nicol 2012) (Hamilton and Petty 2023), and a Stanford study (Opezzo & Schwarz 2014) demonstrates that walking positively impacts imagination.
Adrian Piper, Catalysis III, 1970
A large proportion of our students have access needs that we’re aware of through Independent Support Agreements. In our current year 2, almost 50% of students have an ISA. As a neurodivergent person returning to education myself, I observe benefits from being in different learning environments as well as through movement and connection with peers outside the classroom setting. This intervention feels meaningful personally as it relates to my academic practice–fostering community and human-centred pedagogy and it connects with my work as a publisher[3] and artist, as well as practices of walking and running which are key parts of the self-care practices I engage with.
Following a round of activities and feedback I will consider if it is appropriate to extend these activities to other units.
Anticipated Challenges
Some students who are more comfortable in a formal learning setting might find this approach confusing. There may be students who find the activities physically or psychologically challenging, the weather may be a hindrance, and as with any task, there is a question of student engagement.
Ways this activity can be supported include through the pastoral tutorials; it can be scaffolded and contextualised through examples of creative practitioners using walking in their practices. I will be seeking feedback on the activities at different points in the unit, the methods of feedback are yet to be determined.
References
Beames, S., Higgins, P. and Nicol, R (2012) Learning Outside the Classroom: Theory and Guidelines for Practice, Routledge, London/New York
Hamilton L. G. and Petty, S. (2023) Compassionate pedagogy for neurodiversity in higher education: A conceptual analysis, Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 14, DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1093290
hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge, London.
Morton, T. (2021). All Art Is Ecological. Penguin Random House.
Nelson, M and Wolf, K. Maggie Nelson’s “Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth”, LARB Radio Hour [Podcast]. Available at Apple Podcasts. (Accessed 28 April 2025)
Opezzo, M. and Schwartz, D.L. (2014) Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition Vol 40, No 4, 1142-1152
Orr, S and Shreeve, A. (2017) Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. London: Routledge
[1] I teach on all three years of BA (Hons) Design for Art Direction at London College of Communication. The ‘Intro to’ unit is delivered to new students on all undergraduate courses across UAL, so in theory, if the anticipated benefits are delivered, this intervention could be extended to other courses or held in collaboration with them.
[2] As noted in my blog on Faith, Religion and Belief, Research by Arts SU demonstrates that students who feel part of a community at UAL through participation in the Student Union had higher retention rates and improved attainment across a wide range of demographic factors. Students who were proportionately most positively impacted were from groups who historically suffer from the attainment gap and problems of retention.
[3] Together with Eva Wilson I am co-commissioning editor of the series “ ” (quotationmarkoquotationmark.com), a series of books that looks at forms and roles of publishing as and within artists practices. Each issue initiates a dialogue with an artist or artist group, through which a body of work is introduced.