President’s Welcome

By Su Baker, President, Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts — In this issue of NiTRO we ask how well are we connecting the academy with artist practice outside the Citadel. How well are we preparing our students and how do we support our colleagues in their core career aspirations, that in most cases will be outside the university and educational context? 

By what models of practice are we prototyping, or modelling, the career conditions of artists, writers, performers and all producers of new creative work, and are we able to take advantage of the freedom from market forces that we have within the academy, to be a testing ground for ideas, products, processes and speculation about our place in the world? This is our great asset and one of which we need to be most mindful. We should remind ourselves of this privilege, and this opportunity. Are we making the most of it?

A new report from the ARC, made available here in this edition, gives us a picture of the ERA from the years 2010, 2012,and 2015, and demonstrates our embedded-ness in the research evaluation system. We have adapted to this process through scrutiny of ourselves, high levels of application to the new criteria and with a collective and pragmatic willingness. We can now see a pattern of performance emerging. This is interesting, but we must also remember that this is largely an exercise in the accountability of public funding to universities for research. It is not the whole story.

In our attempt to integrate our work as artists and writers and performers and makers of new work, into the research paradigm, we have met this challenge well –  to the extent that we now have a mainstream place in the table of fields of research, such as they are described by the ABS. In many cases university research cultures have accepted our participation, albeit at times qualified and conditional on meeting these somewhat blunt and proximate measures.  Much of our energy has gone into this need to align to the somewhat imperfect system of evaluation amongst peers in the Higher Education system so as to take our place at the high table. So this is a collective achievement to celebrate.

Are we able to take advantage of the freedom from market forces that we have within the academy, to be a testing ground for ideas, products, processes and speculation about our place in the world?

But is that all there is, my friends? Is that all there is to life in the arts? This is what we must ask ourselves and be sure that we remember that our core business and primary motivation is to serve as a site of learning about our disciplines; to nurture, mentor and embolden generations of new artists and cultural professionals; to add to the cultural capital of the country through the production of advanced works, critical discussion or analysis;  and to promote courageous experimentation. Are we doing that still? If so, this would be the true measure of innovation and advance in our disciplines.

The problem is we have no such measure, no dreaded data of these many successes and achievements across the sector and so perhaps such a picture needs to be formed. From our own anecdotal reporting this would be an extraordinary story to tell. If we were to identify the community engagement in public events emerging from our respective teaching programs that would be some story of engaged teaching and a demonstration of the impact of our work; one which is not collected through research evaluation processes. This would be a different order of public accountability.

So, with that in mind, what do our students need from us? (and I mean the undergraduates and coursework graduate students, whose enrolments largely pay for the rest of it, no matter what we hope for research income). And what do their audiences, their markets and clients and peer groups and communities expect from them?  How well do we serve the emerging artists and professionals whose main focus is the performing of their capabilities in their respective professional forums?

While a proportion of our student population will go on to develop what we consider a research profile, and will work in the Academy, there are equally as many or more whose focus is on the exercise of their professional education and training in the arts, and whose motivation is to join their respective professions. We must not lose sight of that as a critical driver and responsibility of our mission as educators.

There is some advantage to us to join this ‘new’ strategic focus on the ‘end user’. In fact it has always been the focus of the arts. . .

So, there is some advantage to us to join this ‘new’ strategic focus on the ‘end user’. In fact it has always been the focus of the arts – engagement with the public or publics, whether they be the art world/market itself with highly developed critical judgment or a broader more general public reception and all the rest in between.

The arts have always collected around groups of like-minded professionals as in the highly regulated mediaeval guild system, schools of thought and practice emerging through newly formed ideas, and in some cases quite deliberate collective and identified groups, as in the Constructivists or Surrealists, or New Realists, or many others with strident manifestos of purpose. This has been the way that ideas of art have been determined, argued for or against and ideas have emerged and at times, advanced. Similarly there have been people who position themselves outside those groups, opposed to the conventions and pushing boundaries into the unknown. This dynamic between convention and dispute is the core energy source of the artistic machine, or organism, or system, however you like to characterise it.

We have joined this new collective called the University, for the things we need and are given – infrastructure, a systemic framework to receive  and manage public funding support and in many cases a strategic framework for growth. We have adapted to part of that system through research evaluation. Now we should pay attention to the greater role of our core business, preparing the generations of artists and all that that means. This is the fun bit. Let’s enjoy it!

More from this issue

More from this issue

For many, 2022 has been a year of transition. Whether moving into new roles or university structures, new (or extended) forms of teaching and learning, different research and research training landscapes, not to mention refreshed national governance and priorities, many of our DDCA members will remember 2022 as the year where changes brought about by COVID-19 started to settle in.

Welcome to this penultimate edition of NiTRO for 2022, which has been expertly curated by Dr Alejandra Canales and her colleagues at The Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS).

Welcome to the latest edition of NiTRO. The clocks (for some) have moved forward, and I know many of us are looking forward to a well-earned summer break. But alas, there is still a lot to do before then!

Arts and culture in Australia is on the turn. We hope. Since the recent federal election, from which the Australian Labor Party came back into power after a 9-year hiatus, there has been a lot of “noise” about the potential of a real future for arts and culture. “New National Cultural Policy”, which is currently accepting submissions (the DDCA is collaborating on a submission with our colleagues at the Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities – DASSH), is just one sign of the Federal Government's commitment to what many of us already know to be the lifeblood of

Welcome to the 42nd edition of NiTRO, which examines a broad range of approaches and viewpoints on the Creative Arts PhD, edited by David Cross and Jenny Wilson

Welcome to the 41st edition of NiTRO, our second for 2022. The pandemic is still very much with us as we are open up and international travel returns. Most students have returned to campus, yet classes continue to be plagued by high levels of absenteeism, and academics manage a range of hybrid approaches, a complex task in many artistic disciplines.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Edition 40 of NiTRO, my first welcome as the new President of the DDCA. As I begin my term, challenges will continue and likely intensify. Recent change proposals for the Australian Research Council, government vetos on peer approved grants, and ongoing funding challenges for our sector are just some of the issues requiring continuous and forthright engagement. It is time to be bold.

Welcome to Edition 39 of NiTRO, the last edition for 2021. Following on from our successful virtual forum in conjunction with the Australian Council for University Art & Design Schools on the 28th and 29th October, we take this opportunity to reflect on day one in which we compared our COVID-19 affected two years with that of the UK.

Welcome to the 38th edition of NiTRO in which we focus on the ever-recurrent discussion around an alternative arts education in Australia, brought into focus once again as a result of impending rationalisations in our universities and training institutions.

Welcome to edition 37 of NiTRO in which we discuss issues of collaboration, ethics and authorship. We are proud to co-edit this edition with the Australian Film Television and Radio School, one of our valued member institutions and hopefully the first of many co-edited issues with our growing network of partner organisations.

It is my pleasure to welcome you to this edition of NITRO, which focuses on the Design aspect of the broad Creative Arts.

Mental health is a major issue and one that suffers in parts from being a relatively hidden disease, even though mental health affects one in four of us in our lifetime … This issue is timely in many ways in the midst of a COVID pandemic, but timeless in its effects on our global communities and the wellbeing of our citizens.

As we in Australia begin to step out, gradually getting closer to normal social interactions once more, our colleagues elsewhere are still dealing with lockdowns and ongoing disruptions. However, our “normality” is bounded, as we sit in our national isolation, and wait for the time when international travel can resume. This isolation will shape our academic and research work in a unique way that is yet to be understood.

We take stock of our institutions one year on from the outbreak of COVID-19, and gaze into our hazy crystal ball to see what might lay ahead in these uncertain and unpredictable times.

Normally in the final edition of NiTRO for the year, we look back and take stock of what we achieved, a celebration of our unity and our togetherness and usually from a national perspective. 2020 was different, a year to forget in many ways but also a year from which to learn.

Welcome to the 31st edition of NiTRO in which we reflect on a momentous year that no one could have predicted or wished for. In some ways everything happened: catastrophic bushfires, a global pandemic, airlines grounded, the loss of entire cohorts of international and domestic students, the closure of courses and campuses, the shutdown of entire cities, Black Lives Matter and now the Job Ready legislation passing through parliament. And it isn’t over yet!

Welcome to the 30th edition of NiTRO in which Professor Cat Hope co-edits a discussion on interdisciplinarity, timely in the context of a new normal brought about by a rethink of our practices and traditions in a post-COVID world.

We gauge the response from our students to see how we fared during the early days of the pandemic from their perspective. The student voice is essential in helping us reflect on this life changing moment in time, so we can better prepare for change as change becomes the new norm.

This forced transition has highlighted our generosity of spirit and our collective belief in what we do. We have shared expertise, ideas, advice and knowledge to help each other in times of crisis, and for this I would like to thank everyone for their speedy and professional response to this situation on behalf of all at the DDCA.

Welcome to the 27th edition of NiTRO. It is difficult to know where to start to write an introduction that will not seem out of date by the time it is published. The COVID-19 virus has changed our world forever, and let us hope that some of what we enact now will improve life for us all.