08 Aug — 19 Sep 2020
The Exchange
An Arts Council Collection National Partners Programme Exhibition.
Hippo Campus: Where We Learn
A group exhibition featuring works from the Arts Council Collection that explores alternative schooling, peer-to-peer learning and self-education.
In recent years there has been increasing concern about the downgrading of arts subjects in primary, secondary and higher education. With the rise in fees, closure of courses and loss of studio space across UK art colleges, artists and their peers are increasingly initiating alternative models of education for themselves. Hippo Campus explores how we learn, where we learn, and who we learn from.
Featuring more than 20 artists, Hippo Campus includes photographic images of schools and colleges around the world as traditional places of learning, such as Birmingham students by Vanley Burke and top-hatted pupils at Eton by Tony Ray-Jones. Devices for learning, memory aids, and the fallibility of memory are illustrated by works by Emma Kay and Mariele Neudecker. Mind maps and learning through popular culture are presented in works by Jeremy Deller and Andy Holden.
The exhibition takes its title from Bedwyr Williams’ piece of the same name; Hippocampus being the part of the brain that enables memory and learning. Other artists presented from the Collection include Pavel Buchler, Tarik Chawdry, Joan Hassall, Nick Martin, Bob & Roberta Smith and Libuse Taylor.
Hippo Campus also includes work by other UK artists, including Marcus Coates’ Conference For the Birds, Beck & Cornford’s documentation of the closure of art schools, Benedict Drew’s alternative curriculum with Open School East, Ryan Gander’s video study of children’s hands-on learning and collaborative play, and Magda Stawarska-Beavan presents her son’s development of language in a bilingual family.
A film by Rachel Jones, specifically commissioned for Hippo Campus, celebrates the knowledge and skills held by independent shopkeepers in Penzance. Idle Women present Power Tools, a series of household DIY videos made by women, for women. (See these and other film and audio works from Hippo Campus)
Please bring your own earphones to listen to the audio works.
Throughout the exhibition there will be small forum areas, with books, tablets and pin boards, which expand on themes within the show, and invite contributions from visitors. The launch of Hippo Campus will be the start of a conversation with, and between, visitors to share their own knowledge and skills. See Lunchtime School resources
For our summer exhbitions we usually produce a Family Think & Do activity booklet. This year, you can find the activities to do at home on our 360 Virtual Tours. Look out for the six green actvity circles in each exhibition tour.
Hippo Campus: Where We Learn is curated by Blair Todd, Programme Curator at Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange.
Both Go On Being So and Hippo Campus: Where We Learn were created before the Covid-19 pandemic, but in many ways the themes of each exhibition are more pertinent now than when they originally opened in Feb 2020.
A Heuristic Interlude, a series of photographs by Bekkie Graham, tells the stories of five families in the UK who were not home-schooling prior to lock-down. However, since trialling this way of living and learning during the school closures, they have either decided to de-register their children from school, or are seriously considering doing so before schools return in September.
For more details see A HEURISTIC INTERLUDE and https://www.bambino-art.co.uk/a-heuristic-interlude/
Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange is an Arts Council Collection National Partner. The Arts Council Collection is managed by Southbank Centre, London on behalf of Arts Council England.
Find out more about the Arts Council Collection National Partners Programme.
Venue: The Exchange
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Open: TUE - SAT, 10.00 - 17.00
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Instagram: @newlynexchange
