C School is one of three newly established schools at CSM, alongside S School (Systems) and M School (Materials). Comprising 14 courses across art, performance, and curation disciplines, the ‘C’ stands for culture — but not in a traditional sense.
Rebecca Fortnum, Acting Dean of C School, says:
“Culture is what's around us, not something that's in a museum or on the stage, culture is what we're making and encountering in our daily lives.”
The concept of co-creation was deeply embedded in the exhibition’s concept, too. On the left-hand side of the gallery, visitors found a curated archive of artworks and artefacts submitted by the staff. These were organised into 2D, 3D, and 4D grids depending on the nature of the work, featuring everything from photographs and posters to playful objects like a tambourine turned into a clock, books by researchers, and even a colourful balaclava.
To build the collection, the exhibition team invited staff from across the C School — from administrators to technicians and lecturers — to share an artwork or artefact that meant something to them. “Often their work is hidden away, as staff are concentrating on the students because the university is about them and their journey, but as a practitioner you always want to show your work, don’t you?” Fortnum explains.
The window on the right-hand side served as a “highlights” section where student reps from each C School course would select their favourite staff submissions from the archive. These pieces, arranged in 2D, 3D and 4D formats, were swapped out twice a week to keep the exhibition evolving.
Fortnum believes this was a unique opportunity for students to see the creative practices of their tutors. “Our teaching comes from our own experiences,” she explains. “We do what we're expecting our students to do — we practice ourselves and that's where our teaching begins,” she says.
As the first of the new Schools of Thought to have a dedicated exhibition, the C School team also saw this as a chance to reflect on their identity and values. At its core, C School is shaped by three ongoing questions: What does it mean to not know? What does it mean to care? What does it mean to practice?
“When you're building something, you need to question it in order to understand what it is and then you can start thinking about how you interact,” Fortnum explains.
Though the Schools of Thought are still new, C School is already beginning to shape its own community. “We're at the stage where we’re beginning to become visible, which is why this show was called Seeing C School,” says the Dean.
While the relationships between the three schools are still forming, there’s already a balance of distinct approaches and shared values. “Most importantly, we wanted others to be part of the questioning of what C School is — we want to build it collectively,” Fortnum concludes.