UWIC protest draws crowd against arts cuts
A peaceful protest drew upwards of 200 people outside the management offices of UWIC's Llandaff campus on Wednesday, as WalesOnline reported and the Twittersphere confirmed.
- A peaceful protest drew upwards of 200 people outside the management offices of UWIC's Llandaff campus on Wednesday, as WalesOnline reported and the Twittersphere confirmed.
- See WalesOnline photo gallery of the protest, posted Thursday morning to the site:
- Student Sam Smith, currently studying for a BA in music technology and production, was one of the lone voices on Twitter during the protest. He learned about the protest from a tweet and blog post on Llandaff News, writing in a direct message that there had not been any emails or posters on campus about the vigil.
- Tweeting as @SamCityCircus -- as he is also the bassist in the band City Circus -- he used #csadcuts to showcase several photographs of the protest as it developed.
- As Sam implies in his final tweet of the night, the music production and technology course also is believed to be on the chopping block. He writes in a direct message that "nobody knows about it".
- WalesOnline's post-protest report states: "Courses in music technology and design, music technology and sonic arts, media and visual culture and interior architecture are also believed to be under threat."
- Despite Sam's tweets being the only ones live at the scene, numerous Twitter users have posted support or re-tweeted news of the protest to their own followers. Here are a few of the most recent:
- The cuts to Cardiff School of Art and Design were first posted on 3 December.
Changes to the CSAD Portfolio 2011/12 « CSAD News
UWIC announces changes to the CSAD undergraduate portfolio for 2011/12 entry. Unfortunately, and with regret, entry into the following programmes are suspended, following detailed considerations of the CSAD portfolio, in light of the Welsh Assembly Government’s desire for universities to plan provision on a regional basis and the introduction of a cap on undergraduate student numbers that affects all universities in Wales. Read the full article here. You may use these tags and attributes:Notify me of follow-up comments...- The school then clarified the cuts to the sculpture department in another post dated 6 December.
- CSAD is proud of its tradition for excellence in sculpture in its Fine Art, Ceramics and Textile programmes, at undergraduate, masters and research degree levels. The School is committed to maintaining these traditions and will be extending opportunities through a new degree for the artist maker, to start in 2012. The changes recently announced are concerned with the withdrawal of the sculpture pathway in Fine Art, but should not be taken as a withdrawal from sculpture, in its many forms, at CSAD, far from it. Read full article… You may use these tags and attributes: ...
- An online petition was then started, with the first signature from Shaun James: "This can not be allowed to proceed, as artists and former students we will not accept the neutering of an institution that has done so much for are education. Sculpture can not be dissolved. Students of CSAD, from whatever department you call home show your support, if we do not act now then there will be no fine art course left!"
As of Wednesday evening, the petition had more than 800 signatures. As WalesOnline reported, these were read out as part of the protest. - See the online petition below:
Save the CSAD Sculpture Department
As we now know the management of UWIC/Cardiff school of art and design have seen fit to close down the Sculpture department. This move has been met with great resistance from the wider Cardiff art scene and students past and present, as it should, but we need to know formalize a response that will show are outrage at this decision, as Sam Hasler has already said 'It is my strong belief that Sculpture as a discipline and mode of thought underpins the most radical and progressive art that takes exists today bringing important contribution to the visual language of painting,...
