Spa Magazine - Winter 2018

THE ART OF ASKING We all do it, but here’s how to get it right STUDENT MAGAZINES A behind-the-scenes look at student life

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THIS ILLUSTRATED LIFE Our visions of the future for this booming art

The magazine of Bath Spa University

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WINTER 2018 ON CAMPUS

To see the illustration animated on the cover and on pages 18/19, download the Artivive app for free, hold in front of the illustration – and prepare to be amazed!

02 ON CAMPUS 03 LETTERS 07 SOUTH BY SOUTH-WEST: ANNIE MAW 08 SECRET SPA: THE HOP POLE

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10 TOOLS: FOOD TECHNOLOGY 13 BRAINWAVES: RICHARD PARKER

FEATURES 14 THE FUTURE OF ILLUSTRATION Illustration is booming. So what does the future hold? Five leading illustrators from the Bath Spa community tell us, in words – and pictures.

24 PROFILE: PROFESSOR SUE RIGBY The “professional fossil hunter” and Bath Spa’s new Vice-Chancellor on what it’s taken to get where she is, and her plans for the future.

From Facet to Milk, Bath Spa’s student mags are a faithful record of life at the University, but what else can they tell us about its history?

36 THE ART OF ASKING

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The creative industries are built on the ask, but no matter how much you do it, it never gets easier. Here’s how to get it right.

BACK SECTION 41 UNIVERSITY MATTERS: RYAN LUCAS 42 AT WORK: SAM DIXON 44 ADVENTURES IN... ART FOR SOCIAL CHANGE 48 ON THE BUSES: FASHION

THE FAMOUS FIVE © 2017, Hodder & Stoughton Limited. All rights reserved.

Advertising based on an increase of over 20% in train seats in April 2018 compared to the same period in 2017. Correct as of 27/4/18. Selected routes only. Visit GWR.com for full terms and conditions.

More seats.

More trains.

More adventures.

Publisher: Bath Spa University, Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath BA2 9BN. Editorial enquiries: Kate Love – k.love@bathspa.ac.uk Alumni enquiries: Amethyst Biggs – a.biggs3@bathspa.ac.uk Advertising enquiries: Eloise Oatley – e.oatley2@bathspa.ac.uk Spa is produced by YBM Ltd – info@ybm.co.uk Copyright © 2018 The opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of Bath Spa University or YBM Ltd Editor: Mira Katbamna Deputy Editor: Steve McGrath Art Director: Finnie Finn Cover: Illustration by Andrew Joyce (Graphic Communication, 2010), animation by Louis-Étienne Vallée Icons: Mikey Burton Fonts: Sentinel, Futura, Akzidenz Grotesk

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ON CAMPUS

MEMORIES

Thanks for the memories (Spa, issue 02), they were great fun to read. Coming all the way from Maryland, USA, Bath delighted me in many ways: the early nights; the amazing bakeries; seeing Comet Hale-Bopp due to the low light pollution. But I think the thing that astonished me the most was having classes in a building older than my nation.

Amy Michels (MA, Creative Writing, 1997)

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A lovely event I recall from my time was a wedding anniversary of a couple called Clifford and Rosemary. The students had built a huge goose on a willow frame (Rosemary loved birds!), which had been stored in the buildings near the entrance to Corsham Court.

Clifford and Rosemary had been invited by the students to stand at the main entrance to the Court and, at the appointed time, the goose emerged from the building near the gate (there were one or two students inside this bird, no doubt honking) and waddled up the drive to the main entrance where the happy couple were waiting bemusedly.

The goose crouched down and laid an enormous golden egg! Lots of wonderful memories, and a privilege to have been at this wonderful art school.

Heather Burnley (Art, 1958)

Love it? Hate it?

We want to hear from you!

Email us at alumni@bathspa.ac.uk or write to us at Bath Spa Development and Alumni Relations Office, Bath Spa University, Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath, BA2 9BN Please mark your letters ‘For publication’.

Letters may be edited for length. @BathSpaAlumni facebook.com/BathSpaUniversityAlumni

CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY

Fund helps SW get creative

CHILDREN’S PUBLISHING

Children’s publishing is booming, with revenue from the sale of UK children’s books up by 16 per cent to £365m in the past year, so it’s the ideal time for Bath Spa’s new MA – the world’s first Master’s in Children’s Publishing.

The course will cover key publishing knowledge and skills, from editing to business strategy. It’s been designed to offer students from across the world the flexibility to explore their own interests and to achieve their ambitions.

“Books for children and young adults are high-growth areas of publishing in terms of innovation, revenues and employment, encouraged by best-selling authors such as JK Rowling and David Walliams, and illustrators like Quentin Blake and Lauren Child,” says Katharine Reeve,

subject leader in publishing. “We want to play our part in developing the creative publishers of the future.”

Course leader Dr Laura Little – who has a PhD in children’s picture book illustration – says: “The course will offer a unique immersive learning experience across all areas of children’s publishing. Students will be free to experiment and to create their own exciting projects, from pop-up books to digital story apps, and reimagined fairytales from around the world to non-fiction illustrated books, with support from expert tutors and specialist technical staff.”

The first course begins in September 2018.

To find out more about the MA Children’s Publishing, visit https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/courses/pg-childrens-publishing

ILLUSTRATIONS: ANNIKA HUETT

New Master’s is child’s play

From innovative computer games to cutting-edge apps, the creative tech sector is vital to the south-west’s economy.

Now, Bath Spa will be one of the lead project partners for the £6.4m South West Creative Technology Network fund, delivered via Research England’s Connecting Capability Fund and focusing on building better links between researchers, businesses and investors.

This could be anything from joint research or seed funding for creative new business ideas, to consultancy and training, and the setting up of new companies and social enterprises.

Professor Kate Pullinger, Director of the Centre for Culture and Creative Industries, said: “We are delighted to be working with organisations across the south-west on this innovative project, which plays to our region’s world-leading strengths.”

We are delighted to be working with organisations across the southwest on this innovative project, which plays to our region’s worldleading strengths.

Kate Pullinger, Director of the Centre for Culture and Creative Industries at Bath Spa University

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I’ve been really thrilled to get the new Spa magazine and impressed by everything I read. I came in September 1963 and lived with a very lucky group in The Old Rectory, walking sometimes twice a day down to the “big house” over the cattle grids. Views of Kelston and the ridge will be with me forever, as will the whole three years.

Miss Dawson interviewed me and was a stoic leader for the new thinking education values and for women’s equality. I was very touched by the way she was remembered in Spa (issue 02).

Margaret Williams, née Mackveley (Teacher Training, 1966)

I so identified with Alan Humphries’ memories of Corsham Court (Spa issue 02). I share all his appreciation of such a beautiful place and count the three years I was privileged to be there as among the happiest of my life so far. All those evenings playing the piano in the beautiful music room at the Court (with two concert

grands!) while Mr Mannings, the caretaker, graciously allowed me more time to play before locking up. The cry of the peacocks, the guinea fowl, the beauty of the parkland, cycling past the banks of cow parsley over to Monks Park for screen-printing and etching with Stephen Russ. Indelibly etched on my memory, those years at Corsham were undeniably golden years, for which I am eternally grateful.

Jane Silk, née Barker (Ceramics and Three Dimensional Design, 1973)

The Struts bassist, Jed Elliott (BA Commercial Music, 2012)

Re-launched last year as a multi-arts festival, the Bath Festival builds on the city’s heritage of literature and music.

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It’s an honour to be invited by Mr Dave Grohl.

We’re very excited about it.

The Bath Festival 2018 in numbers

Number of students and staff from Bath Spa who participated in this year’s flagship Festival

NEW BSAD CAMPUS Work is progressing well on the University’s new art and design campus on Locksbrook

The record-breaking number of people who came to the Festival in 2018

Number of years that the Bath Festivals have been running since their launch as a music festival in 1948

ILLUSTRATION

Lecturer stars at Street Child World Cup France may have reigned supreme in the summer’s football World Cup, but a renowned British illustrator from Bath Spa University has vividly captured the Street Child World Cup: The Future Depends on You event in Moscow.

Tim Vyner, Senior Lecturer in Illustration, used reportage – a visual journalism technique that records events by hand and in real time – to tell the stories of young boys and girls from 24 national teams, playing to change the negative perceptions and treatment of street-connected children across the world. His illustrations were

drawn on an iPad, then animated with recorded audio to capture the essence of that exact moment in time.

The event saw more than 200 streetconnected children from across the globe take part in their own international football tournament, festival of arts and congress for their rights.

Vyner’s illustrations were displayed in an inspiring exhibition at the Amber Plaza in Moscow, attended by FIFA World Cup winner Gilberto Silva and the ambassadors of Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia and Uzbekistan.

Road. The summer months have seen a focus on reassembling the iconic old Herman Miller factory, with distinctive GRP outer panels put in place in late July and the roof erected in the middle of August.

The aim is for the building to be watertight by the end of September.

immortalised. Each of the musical notes, keys and staves from his score will now be hand-forged into a new iron balustrade for Bath’s Parade Gardens (see left).

To listen to the composition, visit Jake’s Soundcloud (soundcloud.com/ user-166967640-883589911/hammer-anvilcomposition-by-jake-garrett-bath-iron-2018).

NEWS IN BRIEF

PUTTNAM BURSARY Oscar-winning film producer Lord David Puttnam has awarded three Bath Spa University students a bursary, under the new Puttnam Scholars’ scheme. The three undergraduate Film, TV and Digital Production students – James Hood, Michaela King and Ross Carr – will each receive a share of the £3,500 prize.

They’ll use the bursaries to kick-start their careers in the creative industries.

Events supported through the partnership between Bath Festivals and Bath Spa University

JAKE’S MUSIC IMMORTALISED Final year Bath Spa University BA Music student Jake Garratt has won a National Heritage Ironwork Group competition to have his original piece of classical music

GRADUATE SURVEY

Record numbers in work or study A new study has found that a record 96% of Bath Spa University graduates are in work or further study six months after graduating. This is an increase from nearly 94% in the previous year and secures the University a place in the top 50 of UK higher education institutions for graduate outcomes.

The Higher Education Statistics Authority’s yearly results rank Bath Spa in its highest position to date – at number 41 in a list of the UK’s 152 higher education institutions – and 1.5% ahead of the sector average.

Barrie Grey, Head of Careers and Employability, believes that the study reflects the importance the University places on graduate careers. “These figures highlight the ongoing commitment we have to our students’ career journeys and the value we add to enhance the overall student experience.

We are committed to ensuring our students graduate as engaged global citizens who are ready for the world of work,” he says. “From choosing a career through to skills development, help with applications, interviews and finding jobs, or looking at postgraduate study, we help our students explore all possible options and follow their dreams – the opportunities are limitless.”

SPA MAGAZINE

Your magazine sheds its plastic Spa magazine’s new potato starch film wrapper is the most environmentally friendly film on the market. Using biopolymers, consisting mainly of potato and maize starch which is fully sustainable, the bags are suitable for home composting; they completely disintegrate into carbon dioxide, water and biomass within 10-12 weeks in standard composting condition – leaving no harmful residue behind.

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Former Commercial Music student supports Foo Fighters on US tour

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BATH FESTIVAL

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ALUM GOES GLOBAL

HONOURS

McDermid awarded doctorate The international best-selling Scottish crime author, Val McDermid, has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters, in recognition of her significant contribution to literature and crime fiction.

McDermid, whose novels have been translated into 40 different languages and sold more than 15 million copies, acknowledged the University’s “commitment to taking crime fiction seriously, not only with a postgraduate qualification, but also with the annual Captivating Criminality conference.”

She said: “Whenever I come here, I know I’m always going to find a warm welcome and be able to engage in informed and stimulating conversation.”

Education should be the thread that unites our whole county

ILLUSTRATION: ANNA HIGGIE

ANNIE MAW Annie, Lord Lieutenant of Somerset, was a stateregistered nurse who trained at Westminster Hospital.

After a riding accident in 2002 resulted in paraplegia, she has been active in charities supporting young athletes with disabilities.

I was fortunate enough, in November 2016, to be at the ceremony in Bath Abbey when Jeremy Irons was installed as Bath Spa’s first Chancellor. It was an occasion brim full of verve and vitality, its ceremony punctuated by music, dance, drama and even light projections. The whole day demonstrated just what our creative young people can achieve.

It was light years away from the perception many have that universities are stuffy, impenetrable places. What it told us was that this is a university where talent flourishes and that it’s a place that is open for all. We loved it.

I want people who are born and bred in Somerset to feel proud of their county and to know they have the opportunity for a fulfilling and enriching university experience close to home. Those years when you pass from childhood to adulthood should be some of the most precious in life, a wonderful period of learning and discovery. But while many students have a marvellous time, that isn’t inevitable – many struggle. I firmly believe that by staying close to home and learning in a familiar area, with family nearby, you can relieve some of those pressures, especially for more vulnerable young people.

It is my feeling that education should be the great thread that draws the whole county together – education is the great enabler. It is so encouraging to see more and more universities like Bath Spa looking beyond their walls to the places, people and communities it can serve and support. By strengthening that thread, there’s a real opportunity to draw the urban and the rural elements of Somerset closer together; to improve opportunities for its people; to build on its existing economic success; and to celebrate this amazing county.

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he tension between rural and urban is played out on a daily basis in all parts of Britain. Yet our county of Somerset seems to me to have an especially contrasting quality.

It is a county that benefits both from the cultural and creative energy of Bath and nearby Bristol, as well as from the gorgeous environment and rural landscape of what I call ‘old-fashioned England’ that extends westwards. But the rural hinterland, with towns such as Bridgewater, Yeovil, Watchet and Taunton, can feel a very long way from the bright lights of Bath.

In my role, I am lucky enough to travel the length and breadth of Somerset. I am conscious that we need to make a concerted effort to foster ambition and to widen the aspirations of many young people in the area; to make sure that those living in our more remote communities feel that Bath is their city, a place open to them to pursue an exciting career path – with two universities to support them.

So, there are options on their doorstep, whether they lean towards the sciences or the arts.

We have a lot of activities introducing urban children to rural life, such as the excellent ‘FarmLink’ project, but I’m not as convinced we have equivalent programmes designed to introduce rural children to the city. We need to instil young people with the confidence to know that universities like Bath Spa are accessible for them. I have been delighted to see the University engaging with those harder-to-reach communities, which are often remote and rural, in all kinds of ways: working with schools; supporting community projects; and bringing art and performance to places with little or no existing provision.

SECRET SPA THE HOP POLE

Evie Wyld (Art and Creative Studies in English, 2002) talks Argos catalogues, collages and daytime drinking.

WORDS: CATHERINE GALLOWAY / PORTRAIT: ANNA HUIX

EVIE WYLD

An award-winning writer, Evie was born and is based in London, but spent a chunk of her childhood on her grandparents’ sugar cane farm in New South Wales, Australia. In 2018 she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its 40 Under 40 initiative.

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ack when Evie Wyld was spending her time – too much time – sharing jokes and ideas with friends at the Hop Pole, there was little evidence that she would develop into the prize-winning author she is today. “Absolutely not!” says Wyld. “I hoped back then that I’d find a very dull job to do during the week and then do something more fun at weekends.”

But creativity was brewing. “We were all a little bit lost, but I met people I knew I’d know for the rest of my life. A good day was going there and just laughing like schoolkids. I remember taking the Argos catalogue and us all sitting there with scissors, making little collages.

Not in a cool, artistic way, but because everyone was a bit broke and that seemed a good way to pass the time.

I seem to remember it all got quite rude, quite quickly!”

It also became something of a solo sanctuary for Wyld, who would go on to be included on Granta’s hugely prestigious, once-a-decade Best Young British Novelists list. “Inside was dark and cosy, but there was a little garden outside. The beer was good and I’d go there on my own quite often. I could tuck myself away and read.”

It wasn’t a natural place for students to get together, but it was perfect for Wyld. “The Hop Pole is a little bit out of the way, an old man pub, and I think we were much more old man people. We were probably not at all the kind of people they were looking to attract. A shy bunch of arts students; we weren’t friends with the staff or anything, absolutely not the cool, easy and breezy people that we are now,” she says, smiling.

The inspiration worked, and her debut novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, was published in 2009, winning both the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Betty Trask Award. This was followed in 2013

by All the Birds, Singing, drawing on Wyld’s childhood in Australia, and also picking up industry accolades including the Miles Franklin Award, the Encore Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize.

But perhaps that “dark on the inside, light on the outside” atmosphere she loved in the Hop Pole comes out most strongly in Everything Is Teeth – a graphic novel written by Wyld and illustrated by her friend and fellow alumnus Joe Sumner (Fine Art, 2002), also adept at the Argos collage challenge.

Now, as the parent of a lively three-year-old and with her own independent bookshop in Peckham, south London, Wyld confesses that she can no longer “do daytime drinking”, but, stepping back into the pub, she feels it hasn’t really changed that much. “To me it’s an important place rather than an impressive place.

We didn’t just go there to celebrate; we went there to be annoying, bored and pissed off. It’s filled now with the ghosts of our younger selves.”

We spent our days there making collages from the Argos catalogue – I remember it all got quite rude, quite quickly

TOOLS FOOD TECHNOLOGY Dr Anil de Sequeira explains why insect cookies are the future.

WORDS: DIANE SHIPLEY / PHOTOGRAPHY: ALUN CALLENDER

1) Ukrainian artisan honey Honey is a big part of the Ukrainian economy and I collected this sample when I visited a small producer as part of a European research grant. One of my students analysed it and found there are high pesticide levels in some of the crops the bees are foraging on. We always talk about research-led teaching but this is teaching-led research, where I’m pursuing research areas as a result of scholarship for my lectures.

2) Balance Every scientist needs a balance that can measure down to the most minute quantities.

If you’re saying that you have so many pesticides per kilogram, you have to weigh your samples accurately. Even in the kitchen, if you want to be consistent then you need proper scales.

3) Food processor One of the projects I’ve used this for is a chocolate-chip cookie recipe that replaces a third of the wheat flour with flour made from crickets. By 2050, we’ll need alternative sources of protein because the world population will be nine billion and we won’t have enough meat. When we take the cookies to public events, adults and older children tend to be sceptical, but anyone under the age of 10 is pretty enthusiastic.

4) Volumetric flasks You can use these flasks to dilute a sample to a very specific level, for example, or maybe adjust the pH of something like a fruit smoothie to stop certain microbial growth, using citric acid to make up a set concentration. The size of flask you use depends on how much of a solution you want to make.

5) Duran bottles Vials carry the samples between labs, and these bottles carry the solution that is added as part of the process to separate, identify and quantify each component in a mixture. The solution drives off the pesticides or whatever you want to study and we call this solution the mobile phase (the column is the stationary phase).

6) pH meter We often need to know how alkaline or acidic things are. If you’re making a smoothie, for example, you want the measurement to be between 3.2 and 3.8, whereas something like a lasagne has a pH of 5.8, which means it won’t survive if it isn’t chilled or frozen. pH meters have now been developed so that if you put a probe into a sample, it will tell you the exact pH of that specific item.

7) Centrifuge tubes Another of my key research areas is to develop little indicator labels that change colour with time and temperature to monitor the shelf life of different foods, using enzymes extracted from bananas. I blend a banana with some chemicals, put the mixture in a centrifuge tube and then put it in the centrifuge machine, which spins at a very high speed and separates the enzyme from the banana.

8) HSyringe filters and HPLC/glass vials Once you’ve extracted a sample, you put it into these vials then take it to another lab and put it into the highperformance liquid chromatography machine. You can then run tests to identify what it is and whether it’s above the maximum levels for health and safety.

9) Periodic chart handkerchief I like it that this works as a fashion accessory but I can also take it out and refer to it, to work out the weight of different compounds, for example. It was a gift from an alumnus, along with matching cufflinks. My students are very important to me – I want to give them the tools to help them see their own excellence and develop their interests.

Dr Anil de Sequeira leads the BSc (Hons) Food with Nutrition programme. His speciality is food chemistry, having spent time with SmithKline Beecham and the Chemical Engineering Research Centre, South Bank University. For his PhD, he developed a time temperature indicator for stored food, using enzymes extracted from bananas. He is a chartered scientist and a Fellow of the Institute of Food Science and Technology.

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We all need to be attachment aware to let children succeed

ILLUSTRATION: ANNA HIGGIE

RICHARD PARKER

Richard is Head of Consultancy at the Institute for Education.

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ur work on Attachment Aware Schools dates back to research done in the 1960s by the psychotherapist, John Bowlby, who established links between the degree of attachment between infants and their primary caregivers, especially mothers, to the later behaviour of those children. Today it is widely accepted that if children have not had the opportunity to form a strong attachment to their parents, then their whole mental picture can become distorted.

Securely attached children learn to trust adults. But if children don’t start off from a secure base, they don’t know where they stand, and can become aggressive and withdrawn. If we can better understand why and how some children behave the way they do, we can find ways to help them succeed in their education.

Over the past five years we have developed an Attachment Aware Schools programme involving Bath Spa University, Bath and North East Somerset Council and a range of other organisations across the country. Bringing together schools and specialists, the stated aim of our work is “to create ‘attachment aware’ schools and communities in which all children and young people experience the nurturing environments they need to grow and achieve”.

To support this, we have developed a programme of emotion coaching, based on Professor John

Gottman’s work in the United States, which enables children to deal with their feelings, to self-regulate and solve problems for themselves. We are founder members of the Attachment Research Community – a national charity that helps schools to become attachment aware.

Of course, for the approach to work, everyone at the school has to be committed, starting at the top with the headteacher and governors. The school designates an attachment lead teacher, and provides regular training on attachment, trauma and nurturing strategies for all staff, with support available for parents and carers. Through the programme, educators are helped to establish attachment-like relationships with their students.

We adopt a pyramid approach, where we recognise that children at the apex, who have experienced severe trauma and neglect, require specialist support outside the remit of the school. I always tell teachers: you are an educator, not a social worker, a psychiatrist or a therapist. But there are many children in the middle of the pyramid who have unmet attachment needs and need extra nurturing. And everyone – children and staff alike – requires support for their emotional wellbeing, so by adopting an attachment aware approach, the whole school benefits.

The best teachers are already attachment aware, although sometimes unwittingly. I remember explaining the programme to a teacher who suddenly said, “Oh, you mean my bacon butty club”. Every morning, she would get together the vulnerable children in her school, including those in care or classed as having special needs, and give them all breakfast – as well as an opportunity to talk through any issues. The approach doesn’t need to be prescribed to be effective.

There is a dawning awareness of the issue of mental health in schools, but for years the government has taken what is, in my view, a ridiculously behaviourist approach. The report last year by teacher and behaviour expert Tom Bennett on Behaviour in Schools made no mention of emotion or attachment. The Green Paper put forward by the Secretary of State for Education in December 2017 for consultation on Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision shows more promise.

Perhaps because we badgered them so much, the paper explicitly states that attachment awareness should be part of the new core framework for teacher training. But it still takes an overly medical approach, targeting the individual rather than adopting a holistic approach, where the whole school is involved.

It is easy for me to sit at my desk and make pronouncements on how children’s attachment issues should be handled. It’s quite different when you are a teacher with an aggressive child disrupting the entire class. But through emotion coaching we can help teachers and pupils set limits and work through problems together, rather than being reduced to shouting at each other. We need to get away from the idea that this is just a few “loopy kids causing trouble” and instead look at the whole culture of the school.

Illustration is booming. So what does the future hold? We asked five leading Spa illustrators to tell us, in words – and pictures.

HATTIE CLARK (GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION, 2016) ILLUSTRATOR

This illustration is like a parade of people working together, using different techniques and moving forward, going in a positive direction. I’m happy that illustration looks set to be much more collaborative in the future, because I don’t like working on my own.

There are more shared spaces and print fairs, bringing creative people together. I love print fairs because you get to chat to people and see what everyone else is doing.

I’ve always enjoyed creating character-driven work with simple, bold colours. I always draw with a paintbrush: I’ve got used to the flow. I’m probably a bit messy. When I get a brief, I try to respond to it instantly, filling lots of sheets with ideas. I’ll create sketches and notes and swatches of colour, and keep doing that until something starts to click. I mainly work with black ink to start with, and I might paint in colour by hand, or do a bit of digital, or some collage and texture.

I don’t have a single source of inspiration: it’s just the smaller, everyday things that make me smile.

For me, it’s always been about being playful and having fun with it – work that makes people smile or feel happy. And having a bit of nonsense in there!

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INTERVIEWS: LUCY JOLIN

TESS REDBURN (GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION, 2012) ILLUSTRATOR AND SENIOR AGENT AT CENTRAL ILLUSTRATION AGENCY

I probably wouldn’t describe my own work as strictly illustration. Although I did study illustration at university, and I spent a little while doing a lot of illustration, my work has veered away to somewhere where it crosses over with graphic design and fine art.

My roughing-out is done digitally. I put together a collage of photographs just to lay out what I want to do, and then draw over it with very simple shapes in Photoshop. Once the rough is approved, I hand-paint it with acrylic and then scan it. And that’s the finished artwork: usually a small painting.

I’m not very confident in conceptual work: what I usually do – for record sleeves, posters and things like that – is quite abstract. Here, I’m trying to represent something optimistic; things moving onwards and upwards, without being too literal. I thought a staircase was quite a simple metaphor. You can create these interesting, almost abstract compositions around framing parts of architecture in interesting ways. Lots of colour is what I work with. If I veer too far from that, I end up not liking it. I look at it and think: ‘No, I’ll go back to that primary colour palette I always use.’

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You can create these interesting, almost abstract compositions around framing architecture in interesting ways

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Right: To see this illustration come to life, download the free Artivive app and hold your mobile device over the top of the image.

ANDREW JOYCE (GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION, 2010) COMMERCIAL ILLUSTRATOR WITH CLIENTS INCLUDING L’OREAL, ADIDAS AND UNIQLO

At the moment, I’m experimenting with different types of technology, such as augmented reality. This illustration works as it is, but if you download the free Artivive app and hold it in front of the page, you’ll see it move. I’m never going to be at the forefront of tech, but there are so many opportunities there by using phones that everyone has to make a still image move, tell a story, come off the page. In the future, we might not be thinking about a flat image, but how we’re going to interact with it and make it tell more of a story.

I don’t consider myself an artist. I read a quote that ‘art asks questions, illustrations answers questions’ and maybe that’s where the difference is. Commercial illustration is what I like: to solve problems with illustration and work with clients to visualise certain things.

I’ve never had a big message or tried to say anything. I just enjoy drawing. I love playing around with shapes, certain designs and colours – for almost every project, I use a pre-determined set of colours, usually big, bright, bold and graphic, almost like icons.

LAURA MEDLICOTT THIRD YEAR, GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION

When I was a child, we had these big encyclopaedias with illustrations of animals in them. I used to try and copy them. In Honduras, where I grew up, you don’t mess around with this art stuff. It’s not a proper job.

There was always a looming thing of having to pick a ‘real’ career.

I didn’t always want to be an illustrator. I wanted to be a palaeontologist, a marine biologist, a fashion designer, a vet – but I always drew. I never stopped: much to the annoyance of my teachers. That’s why I decided to study illustration. But I still love science, especially biology, as well as art, and I’d love to find a way to combine those two passions.

I’ve been thinking about illustration and photography, and how illustration shows the hand of the author more. There is a lot more bias, and I think that’s a good thing. Everything kind of looks the same right now.

I think editorial is going to seek out illustration a lot more. That kind of authenticity makes stories stand out. But of course, we don’t know what the hot new thing is going to be ruling our lives in 10 years’ time. Will the best way to communicate in that medium be photography, or illustration? We’re figuring that out as we go along.

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Illustration has an authenticity that makes stories stand out. But we don’t know what the hot new thing will be in 10 years’ time – we figure it out as we go along

TIM VYNER REPORTAGE ARTIST AND SENIOR LECTURER IN ILLUSTRATION

You can definitely observe styles of illustration that move with the times. But I prefer to find trends in terms of subject matter. These days, illustrators are engaging in much more interesting content than in the past. With the advent of social media, we have a voice to do that. I think there are some great opportunities now for illustrators to generate their own content through narrative and observation, rather than waiting to be commissioned.

I do location-based illustration. It’s about being a visual journalist: documenting and recording particular stories involving people. I’m constantly feeding and fuelling my ideas and my imagination.

I visit places with my sketchbook – it’s a huge part of any illustrator’s practice.

The black ink drawings in this illustration, for example, are of Greek, Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian sculptures from the British Museum.

Then I had the opportunity to work in a virtual reality studio, where I put a headset on and was drawing a set of figures from my imagination in this three-dimensional environment. I simply laid those over the top of the illustration, as though they were leaping off the page.

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I laid virtual reality figures over the top of black ink drawings, as though they were leaping off the page

WORDS: LUCY JOLIN / PHOTOGRAPHY: ANNA HUIX

All those jobs that robots can’t do – that need human skills, artistic skills – that’s what we teach. Our roots go back to the 1850s, but we’re made for the 21st century.

It’s highly likely that Professor Sue Rigby is the only Vice-Chancellor in the UK with ‘professional fossil hunter’ on her CV. “It’s a great job title, isn’t it?” she says. “It was one of my first academic jobs, shared between the University of Leicester and the British Geological Survey. I’d get a 1:10000 map with red dots on it, visit the red dots and collect fossils. Jobs don’t get much better than that.”

She does concede, however, that being the new Vice-Chancellor of Bath Spa might just beat it.

“Because universities are worth spending your life running, aren’t they?” she says. “In any society that can afford them, universities are where you know that you are adding value: to students, to staff and to society at large, through research, engagement and graduates.

It’s not like leading a company, or a firm of solicitors.

It’s much weirder. I like that weirdness. It’s fun.”

Professor Rigby’s 20-year career as a palaeontologist began in her childhood. She grew up in the rugged North Pennines, Cumbria, where she accompanied her geography-teacher father on rock-collecting expeditions. She took an MA in Earth Sciences at Oxford, followed by a PhD in Palaeontology at Cambridge, with a “magical” stint diving in Bermuda to examine how living organisms related to the fossils of the extinct creatures she studied.

But while Rigby loved being an academic palaeontologist, after 20 years she felt the urge to try something new. At the University of Edinburgh, she became Assistant Principal and then Vice-Principal.

From there, she moved to the University of Lincoln as

Deputy Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for student development.

Her role at Bath Spa happened, she says, almost by accident – she went along to the interview because a headhunter thought she would be a good fit. “And I walked out thinking: ‘If I get any sense of an offer for this one, I will take it like a shot.’”

Rigby is certainly no stranger to serendipity – her career path is littered with it. Take the awardwinning Making the Most of Masters programme, which she introduced at the University of Edinburgh.

A Master’s degree traditionally has a researchfocused capstone project, but many of the programmes at Edinburgh were vocational, involving areas such as carbon capture and storage. “I just thought, why not give Master’s students the opportunity to carry out their projects not around research, but with an employer? The student gets experience; the employer gets their high-level expertise, and everyone wins.”

She wrote the bid on a train journey from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, won almost £1m (over three years) from the Scottish Funding Council, and kicked off the project with a consortium of three Scottish universities. Seven years later, it now has 12 Scottish universities and more than 400 employers involved.

“It’s the simplest idea I’ve ever come up with,” she says. “To help people flourish, you put in some ideas and set them free. Some ideas die because they are simply wrong. Perhaps they’re good ideas in other contexts. Or they are good ideas, but they don’t fly.

And then some of them do fly.”

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SUE RIGBY

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SUE RIGBY A palaeontologist who has worked at Cambridge, Leicester and Edinburgh, Professor Rigby was previously Deputy ViceChancellor at the University of Lincoln and Vice-Principal at Edinburgh. She became Vice-Chancellor at Bath Spa in January and says she looks forward to helping staff and students achieve their ambitions – both for themselves and for their institution.

academic or a colleague. “I have this perception that learning isn’t localised to the instances of teaching that we do. And if that’s the case, then it’s a rich space to explore how we could broaden people’s experiences, to make it more likely that those moments of almostrevelation would happen more often.”

That space, she points out, might not necessarily include a traditional lecture theatre. It’s a bold concept at a time when both the role of universities and the value they bring are increasingly being questioned.

But, says Rigby, this atmosphere means it’s even more vital to ask the obvious questions and engage in debate.

“I welcome turbulence, because it means we have to keep checking we are on the right track,” she says.

“Some of these questions are deep questions, around societies and values. And we’d be foolish to turn our backs on those discussions. Some is just rhetoric and we need to ride it, because we are sure that what we are doing is adding value. Challenges keep us on our toes but it would be a pity if we were blown off track by them.”

Whatever the future holds, Rigby says, she can’t wait to take Bath Spa forward to meet it. Right now, she’s about to kick off the 2030 Strategic Plan: how the University will meet the challenges of the next two decades. Everyone will be encouraged to talk about what they value now about Bath Spa, and what they’d like it to be in the future – without losing the history that makes it unique, says Rigby.

“Bath Spa is caring, it’s human, it’s a community, and it’s the perfect university for the next 20 years.

All those jobs that robots can’t do – that need human skills, artistic skill – that’s what we teach. We have roots that go back to the 1850s, but we’re made for the 21st century.”

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www.creativeawards.org @creativebath

Another simple idea that flew was making it easier to get a professorship based on learning and teaching, which, she says, was “almost impossible” five years ago. While most universities have a route to professorship in learning and teaching, the criteria tend to be the same as for research professors: evidence of research impact, for example. “That’s just research into higher education – it’s not learning and teaching,” she points out. “Through my work with U21, the global network of research universities, I think we’ve helped universities understand what a professorship in learning and teaching looks like, and to rebalance how universities perceive the value of teachers, as well as research academics.”

Where people learn, and how they learn, is a common theme in her career, whether that’s in the workplace, from a teacher, or digitally – Rigby co-ordinated the first massive open online course (MOOCs) offered to university students across research-intensive universities internationally. “I was trying to get to grips with what digital can offer to higher education and I came back to the idea that it can offer less than people can,” she says. “We thought students doing the MOOC would talk to one another.

But they just looked at the videos and answered the quizzes. We can all learn how to make a cake by looking in a book or on YouTube, but not many of us can learn about deeper concepts from that.”

And she’s fascinated with where that moment of real learning happens. Ask students and they will come up with all the expected answers: lectures, seminars, the library. But, she argues, that moment might easily have been in another, unexpected space – while talking to a friend, rereading an essay you’ve already been graded on, or being challenged by an

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From logging the CBTC’s official chant in 1946 to travel advice and gig reviews in 2018, Bath Spa’s student magazines are a faithful record of student life.

Above: Oliver Robinson-Sivyer (English and Creative Writing, 2018) reads Vesta Magazine (1957) in the print studio at Sion Hill.

WORDS: WILLIAM HAM BEVAN / PHOTOGRAPHY: ANGELA MOORE

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BON KA CHIN KA!

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Right: Emily Raby (Media Communications, 2018) reads BCDS magazine (1922-1939) in the lecture theatre at Sion Hill. Wallpaper designed by Lucinda Rogers (Third year, Textile Design for Fashion and Interiors).

We had all the pages laid out on trestle tables at our flat, with the articles typed up. We did the layout and design, making up the headlines with Letraset.

It took forever

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here’s a good chance that very few of today’s students know that Bath Spa University has an official chant. But according to the first edition of CBTC – the official magazine of what was then the City of Bath Training College – ‘Bonk-a-chinka’ was adopted as the college cry “with unanimous approval” at the committee’s first meeting in October 1946.

The yellowing pages of the magazine, held in the University archives at Newton Park, contain plenty more gems. Trainee teachers at the newly opened college write about all aspects of life, from lectures and lodgings to classroom howlers from their pupils (“An average child weighs 11 stones at birth and gains in wisdom and strength until it reaches the age of dissection”).

It’s a reminder that student publications have been keeping the campus informed for very many years, and current titles such as Spa Life and Milk have a long ancestry. Indeed, the earliest examples in the archives date back to the early 1920s at another one of the University’s predecessor institutions, the Bath College of Domestic Science (BCDS).

They offer glimpses into a very different world. The BCDS magazine from 1922 carries an article on fruit and vegetable preservation, letters from alumni who settled in Queensland and western Canada, and an account of a ‘maidless day’ in a girls’ boarding school – the sort of place where the students would be seeking employment after graduation. It explains: “On this day, the maids go out for a whole holiday and the work is done by some of the girls, under supervision – six housemaids, five cooks and two parlour maids.”

Alongside features on voluntary work in an Austrian refugee camp and Nigerian folk legends, the 1957 edition of the magazine (now entitled Vesta) lists the work destinations of the previous year’s graduates. They range from the Hotel Metropole in Brighton and the University of Bristol refectory to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment. By 1960, the magazine’s name had reverted to Bath Training College of Domestic Science Magazine, and the lead story is the Queen Mother’s visit to open the new Sion Park campus. It is reported in breathless fashion: “The sun was still shining as the Royal Party left the college to the accompaniment of enthusiastic cheers and waves of many college scarves.”

The single issue of Facet that survives in the archives offers a very different account of the Sixties. Published at Newton Park in 1966, it’s the second – and final – edition of a magazine that gave the College authorities a severe headache. With its risqué fashion shots, bold use of illustration and even a travel feature about St Tropez – “the swingingest spot on the Med” – it comes across as a deliberate break with the past.

Don Parkinson (Graphic Design, 1967) was co-editor of the magazine with his friend Rick Pearce (Graphic Design, 1967). He says: “We had decided to change its name and the format. Before, it was like a school magazine, with reports of college societies and sporting activities and no photographs. We wanted to make it a bit more current and reflect what was happening at that time – and there was a lot happening in music and society.”

In the days before computer typesetting, the editorial process was laborious.

“We did everything,” he says. “We had all the pages laid out on trestle tables at our

flat, with the articles typed up. We did the layout and design, making up the headlines with Letraset [transfer lettering]. It took forever.”

The editorial content, such as a survey that compared Newton Park’s facilities and visiting hours with other colleges around the country, proved problematic with the college authorities. However, the most contentious item was a photomontage entitled ‘Now we are 66’, combining fragments of newspaper advertising with candid quotes from students, as well as an avant-garde poem by Paul Fargher (Teaching, 1967) that ended on a common four-letter word.

“There was friction because of that,” says Parkinson. “The principal didn’t like it at all, so that was the final issue of Facet. We were taken off editorial duties.

After that, it was edited by staff and became an entirely different sort of magazine.”

By the 1990s, it was the Academic Registrar of Bath College of Higher Education (BCHE) who took the greatest interest in student publications – attention that was not always welcome. Stuart Moses (Combined Studies, 1991) was on the editorial staff of Apathy, a magazine with a mission to “halt the downward spiral of lack of interest”. He says: “The first issue led with a story headlined ‘Major disaster’, about how John Major’s government was abolishing the CNAA, the degree-awarding body for colleges and polytechnics. There was a big debate about who should be validating the degrees at BCHE. I remember the Open University was floated as a possibility and some students thought this would be terrible.

“The Academic Registrar at the time wanted to see the story before going to press. He sent back what was described as a marked essay – three pages of suggested alterations, advocating a less harsh attack on the government. The story ran unchanged, and the magazine included another story about the College’s response.”

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Above: Josh Ryall (BA Creative Writing and Publishing, 2015) reads Facet magazine (1966) in the Refectory at Newton Park.

The Registrar wanted to see the story before press and it came back with three pages of suggested alterations.

The story ran unchanged

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way from hard news and politics, Apathy ran creative submissions from students, including poetry and short stories. Moses recalls some lively debates at editorial meetings about how inclusive the magazine should aim to be. He says: “On one side, there would be people who wanted a high-quality publication with only the best contributions. Others thought we should be a voice for everyone and put out whatever was submitted. We never really answered that question.”

To view a collection of more recent student publications, it is necessary to leave the University archives in the Castle Building and take a short walk to the Students’ Union. Since the late 1990s it has funded and printed its own magazine, variously known as BSE (for “Bath Student Experience”, complete with a mad-cow motif ), H2O and Spa Life.

David Jones (Geographic Information Systems; 2007, PGCE Secondary Science 2010) worked on H2O throughout his degree, becoming joint editor in 2006, and recalls that serving a small university has its own particular perils. “H2O had a campaign against women tucking their jeans into boots. We called that the ‘Bath Spa fashion faux pas’,” Jones says. “But there was always a chance you’d bump into someone on campus who would have a difference of opinion: we’d just tell them to

put something in writing and we’d try to get it in the magazine. We ended up running a counter-campaign, against men wearing jeans that showed their underwear.”

It was a cover image that caused the biggest backlash for Claire Sibbick (English Literature and Education, 2009) during her time as editor. She says: “The first issue I edited had a raw steak on the front: a reference to freshers as ‘fresh meat’. That proved controversial.”

Above all, she recalls the effort needed to juggle the magazine’s monthly schedule with academic work. “Especially in your final year, you’re coming up against all these tight deadlines, and so is everyone you’re working with on the magazine. But you have to say, ‘I know you have deadlines, but we have a production schedule too.’”

The first issue I edited had a raw steak on the cover – a reference to freshers as ‘fresh meat’.

That proved controversial

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he current competitor to the Students’ Unionsponsored Spa Life is Milk, an arts-heavy magazine run by Publishing students as part of their course. As well as contributing to the University’s cultural life, it provides valuable experience of magazine production.

Ruth Anderson (Publishing, 2017), who edited Milk in her third year, says: “There’s almost an interview process at the start of the year and the various roles are assigned depending on interest: editor, art director, production editor and sub-editors for each section, as well as marketing managers for each social media platform and a digital team working on upgrades to the website. It’s exactly like a magazine hierarchy would be in a professional environment.”

Milk is predominantly an online publication, but also produces a yearly print edition – something that former features editor Josh Ryall (Creative Writing and Publishing, 2015) found particularly rewarding. He says: “Print just feels more permanent. I remember seeing an article I’d written, an interview with the frontman for a band, when we got the proofs back from the printer, and feeling really satisfied that it was worth the slog. Publishing on the web still seems somehow ephemeral.”

For Anderson, the ink-and-paper edition brings back more bittersweet memories. She says: “Once, the issue was ready but there was a hold-up with the cover. We missed our slot at the printers, so we had to phone the press and say we were really, really sorry. Everyone was stressed, but our lecturers told us this happens in the industry all the time.”

So is there a future for student journalism in printed form? And will the events of 2018 end up in the box files of the University archives alongside all those stories about maidless days, royal visits and Bonk-a-chinka? Ryall believes there’s cause for optimism.

He says: “In Bath, there’s a shop called Magalleria, which is where we launched a couple of our print editions of Milk. It sells all these bespoke, independent and limited-run magazines, and it has been going for a couple of years now. It shows there’s an appetite for good-quality print, even if the majority of your everyday reading is done online.”

Left: Amethyst Biggs (MA Creative Writing, 2006) reads Milk magazine (2018) in the Ampitheatre at Newton Park.

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THE ART OF ASKING The creative industries are built on the ask, but no matter how much you do it, it never gets easier. Here’s how to get it right.

WORDS: MEGAN WELFORD / PHOTOGRAPHY: ANGELA MOORE

Whether you’re after collaborators, subjects, mentors or funding, it’s highly likely that at some point you’ll need to follow the age-old advice: don’t ask, don’t get. But how exactly should you go about it?

“The first thing to remember is that asking for investment takes time,” says Theresa Lloyd, a philanthropy expert and governor at Bath Spa, who has fundraised for the Tate Modern, among many other projects. “You can’t take someone out for lunch and say: ‘Lovely to meet you and please can I have £50,000?’ You need to spend time, sometimes years, identifying the right people and their interests – both philanthropic and general.

“You need to think strategically – such as, this individual is keen on music but is also strongly Christian; they might support training in early church music in a conservatoire. And you must provide opportunities for them to get to know the organisation and its work.

“Research is crucial. If you were planning to build a new concert hall in Bath, for example, research the supporters of similar venues and consider approaching

them. But, remember, that’s just the start: the challenge is to get to know them and develop a relationship.”

It’s also important not to underestimate how long the process can take. “I spend 90 per cent of my time asking for stuff,” says Lizzie Conrad Hughes, a PhD student at Bath Spa, who also runs a small theatre company specialising in Shakespearean cue scripts.

“I ask for volunteers for development workshops for my PhD, I ask for research funding, I ask if someone will run my website, I ask for short-term funding for a project, I ask a venue if we can perform there. I once asked Pret a Manger for a table and four chairs, and had to carry them across Edinburgh during the Festival.

Even that took months to arrange.”

Louise Maythorne, who brokers partnerships at Bath Spa between academia, business and communities, agrees. She says that maintaining mutually beneficial relationships can be even harder than building them, and it’s not something that can be rushed. “Many projects are born out of enthusiasm and goodwill,” she says, “but capturing that first flush can be difficult. It’s important to manage expectations early on, set out

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39 THE ART OF ASKING

roles and responsibilities, and establish goals and timeframes. The best partnerships have a legacy, and evolve as time goes on.”

Another big factor is embarrassment, but there’s simply no room for that in the world of the ask.

Conrad Hughes says it’s just about the moment when “your need is greater than the fear of asking”. She asked her husband to marry her, twice, because she “really wanted to marry him!” But she says she is not naturally a pushy person. “I work as a tutor and I tell my pupils that if they don’t understand something, they should ask; that there is no shame in that. Asking for something is really, really hard. It’s about not giving up, not being embarrassed, and you have to practise to strengthen the muscle.”

And then there’s asking people to work for free.

“It’s a cleft stick,” says Conrad Hughes. “Of course people shouldn’t work for free. But they will, and I’m guilty of exploiting that – and being exploited. You do it for free or it doesn’t happen. I work for free because I love it, because I want to, because I want to play Lady Macbeth or perform at a certain venue.”

She regularly has to ask for money to put on plays.

“When it comes to funding you have to go from door to door with your cap out,” she says. “You can’t just go to any funding body and ask for £10,000 for a play.

There are different pots for different things and it can be easier to get money for an outreach programme than for the play itself. You get to be quite a wheelerdealer, finding out about new pots of money, for example.” She has used crowdfunding and sponsorship.

“I’ll go to local businesses near, say, a venue in Cornwall and then I’ll put their name all over the programme – saying thank you to such and such Cornish pasty company for their support.”

Kate Love, Director of External Relations and Development at Bath Spa, says that people say yes to supporting students because they want to give something back and support the next generation – and because they want to feel part of something.

“It’s all about building a community, a sense of belonging, of family,” she says. “Because if you’re going to ask, people need to know what it’s for – on a deep level. They need to know what impact they are making.

I once asked Pret a Manger for a table and chairs, and had to carry them across Edinburgh – even that took months to arrange

So their donation is not the end – you need to thank them, send them updates and invite them to shows.

Not only are we saying thank you, we are making sure they know that their gift has made a real difference.”

Theresa Lloyd tells the story of a wealthy man who sponsored his postman’s daughter through ballet school. “When the postman invited him to her end-ofyear show it was unbelievable, so emotional. When the world’s problems are overwhelming, being able to have a relationship with an individual and see the impact you can have is amazing.”

When an institution or organisation is looking for support, it shouldn’t just fall to the fundraisers to find leads, says Lloyd. “It should be an institutional mindset. At an event, everyone should see themselves as a host – not just stand around drinking free wine with their colleagues. They should pass on conversations they have about so-and-so’s son who’s doing something relevant.” Once you have identified your potential supporters, whether you’re an individual or an institution, you need to make a plan for them to get to know you, she continues. “Start by

inviting them to a show or a year-end performance, then write to them afterwards and invite them to see more of your work.”

Possible donors receive thousands of requests a year and they filter them with three questions, Lloyd says. “Do I really care about this? Is this person competent to deliver? And am I being asked by someone I trust?” Don’t cold call, she advises. “Can you find a mutual acquaintance, or an existing supporter they might have heard of who will endorse you? Will they write a letter to introduce the project’s concept or the individual behind it? Of course you have to persuade this person first. It all takes time.”

However, she says, asking can be rewarding in every sense if you believe in the cause. “If this person shares your passion, then you are offering them something: a chance to get involved.” Kate Love agrees. “If you understand someone’s motivations, then you are giving them a gift – the chance to express their philanthropic aspirations. If you get that right, then that is something that will bring them immense joy.”

Why one small name change could spell big trouble for education

INTERVIEW: WILLIAM HAM BEVAN. ILLUSTRATION: ANNA HIGGIE

RYAN LUCAS Ryan, who studied Religion, Philosophies and Ethics, was elected Student Union President in March 2017.

He described himself as “the blond smiley kid in the SU shop”.

done little to inspire our confidence in the new body.

Some of its partnerships make little sense. Rather than bringing on board people who actually have experience of the universities sector, the OfS has been wasting time on headline-grabbing initiatives, such as linking up with ex-footballers who will supposedly be able to inspire students and promote university education.

That said, the biggest problem at the moment is uncertainty. As presidents and sabbatical officers, we have a time-limited mandate – we usually have just a year in office. Yet we have to keep students up to date with what we think is going to happen in their courses and learning environment as they progress through university, and try to reassure them about the future.

We do our best to keep up to speed – attending the conferences run by the OfS for union representatives, for instance – but we simply don’t have enough information to predict even the near future.

The best-case scenario would see the OfS taking a hands-off role: setting policy for the sector, but granting vice-chancellors and students’ unions alike the freedom to do what’s best for their own institutions.

We want to have confidence in the government and the new watchdog, just as we have confidence in our Vice-Chancellor to manage Bath Spa University and set policy in the interest of all its students. But the current lack of trust between students’ unions and the OfS makes this very difficult. It’s a situation that must improve for the benefit of everyone who has an interest in quality higher education.

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small but significant change has happened to the way all English universities are regulated.

It may appear that all that has happened is a name change – in April, the Office for Students (OfS) took over from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) as the government watchdog for higher education. But it’s highly significant because, although the new body involves some students in an advisory capacity, it deliberately excludes NUS representation on its board.

This apparent breakdown in trust between the NUS and the government puts individual student unions such as ours in a difficult position. We’re all affiliated to the national union, and it’s the channel through which we would expect to have our voices heard. But if the government is determined to keep the NUS out, how do we, at a small university like Bath Spa, ensure we have some input into the policies that concern us?

The debate around free speech and ‘noplatforming’ provides a good example of what’s going wrong. The OfS is determined to impose the government line on this, which is at odds with the policy that was democratically adopted by the NUS, and which Bath Spa Students’ Union has chosen to follow. If the regulator is going to lay down rules for students’ unions in this way, we are going to see a major erosion of our autonomy and independence.

Well-publicised problems with the membership of the OfS (such as the resignation of Toby Young) have

AT WORK SAM DIXON

Abandoning music for magic was a risk, but it’s paid off in spades.

WORDS: LUCY JOLIN / PORTRAITS: JOE MCGORTY

Chris Martin gave me 24 hours to write a 20-minute spot: those 20 minutes changed my life 4 3 AT W O R K

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s a music director and in-demand session musician, Sam Dixon (Commercial Music, 2009) had a pretty cool career. He worked all over the world with big names, from Pharrell Williams to Coldplay. But the endless hours on planes and tour buses got him down, so he started teaching himself magic tricks – and Maddox the Magician was born.

“On every aeroplane, there I was with a deck of cards,” he remembers. “I once left my passport on the plane because I was so immersed in picking up all the cards I had just dropped.”

But it wasn’t until Coldplay’s Chris Martin gave him an unexpected break that Dixon decided to make Maddox his full-time career. Every night, on the ‘A Head Full of Dreams’ tour, the band hosted an after-party. And every night, Maddox brought his jacket containing all his magic tricks, in case anyone wanted him to perform. One night in Chicago, while showing off his conjuring skills to some guests, Maddox caught Martin’s eye.

“He said: ‘I didn’t know you could do magic! I love magic,’” remembers Maddox. “The next thing I knew, I was performing for him, and then he said: ‘Do you want to open the show tomorrow?’ I had 24 hours to write a 20-minute spot. I’d never even performed magic on a stage before. Those 20 minutes that Chris gave me changed my life.”

The show went down a storm. Maddox went home, got married and turned down every offer of a music job to concentrate on magic. “A lot of people were saying: ‘You’re crazy: why can’t you just do both?

But I’m an all-or-nothing type of person,” he says.

“At uni, I always wanted to be brilliant at one thing, but I was always just pretty good at lots of different things. I had a whole career putting brilliant things together for other people. I decided to do something that I’m really passionate about and that is about my journey.”

That journey recently took him to what he describes as the high point of his career so far: performing an intricate Rubik’s Cube routine live at the London Palladium for Britain’s Got Talent.

“Standing on that stage was the first time in my life I felt like I’d achieved something for myself,” he remembers. “Nothing felt the same as standing there and having 2,500 people stand up and applaud the skills and the routine you’ve just shown them.”

Maddox’s seemingly rapid success makes magic look easy. But in reality, there are no shortcuts.

“I went from opening for Coldplay right to the bottom.

For that first 18 months, I played as many small gigs as I could get to develop my confidence, turning down music work all the while. Then I started to meet other people and get opportunities.”

Practice is key. Every routine has to be perfect.

For magicians, there is nowhere to hide: either a trick is right or it’s not. Today’s magicians can use YouTube to learn techniques, but there’s no substitute for real-life advice. On a break when working with acclaimed music producer Tim Bran, Maddox discovered that Bran is a member of the Magic Circle.

“He was the one I called at 3am when Chris Martin asked me to open for Coldplay,” he remembers.

“We never talk about music, only magic. You learn from books, mentors, people whose trust you gain at the Magic Circle. They drip-feed you ideas. Magic is essentially a language, just like music. When you start, you learn a few notes and play a simple tune.

Magic is the same. In card magic, you can learn to find an ace very quickly, without looking. Now you can use the technique to find any card. So it’s like one chord here, two chords there, melody here, technique here, and you start to get it.”

Then there was the challenge of learning to perform as a magician, as opposed to a musician.

MADDOX THE MAGICIAN

Maddox (aka Sam Dixon) shot to national fame when he reched the semi-finals of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent, where his ‘floating woman’ trick baffled the judges but didn’t quite do enough to beat eventual series winner Lost Voice Guy.

“In a band, the spotlight is never truly on your ability: you are just part of a thing,” Maddox points out. “But as a performer, you suddenly realise that everyone is watching you and you have to entertain them. It sounds obvious, but it’s a very distinct, shocking feeling when you start doing it.”

In the future, he says, he’d love to work up a show that gets members of the audience to do impossible things – “rather than me showing off!” – and to carry on being as innovative as possible. Showbusiness is unpredictable, but he knows that you can’t stand still.

“It’s difficult to move forward, but you’re never going to feel ready. Opportunities have come in and I’ve just had to say yes – and figure it out afterwards.”

ADVENTURES IN...

ART FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Dr Laura Purcell-Gates and the puppets that are changing the way we view disability.

H

e was an 18th-century medical ‘freak’ – a man who could eat vast amounts of meat but also corks, stones, live animals and, for military purposes, secret documents. And now, more than 200 years after his death in a Versailles hospital, Tarrare has been resurrected, in puppet form, by Dr Laura Purcell-Gates, the founder and director of Bath Spa’s Arts and Social Change Research Group, for an opera based on his life.

“We wanted to address the way the medical profession treats bodies – including when it is trying to cure them – and to discuss ideas and ethics around the profession,” she says.

“Puppets are constructed bodies; they’re objects and materials put together in a particular way and then manipulated to look alive on stage. They never move in the way that the body is expected to move, and that brings up a lot of questions around bodies, space, movement and gravity, which are similar to questions in disability performance.”

“We wanted the audience to love the Tarrare character and be on his side, but also not to conceal any details of his grotesqueness – and puppets, because they have this uncanny fascination for people, are ideal vehicles for that. Puppets are human and they are not human, both dead and alive, subjects and also objects,” she says. “What is it when a human being is considered a monster or freak? What happens when we make the audience of our opera the audience of a ‘freak show’, using that person as the

45 ADVE NTURES IN ...

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WORDS: RADHIKA HOLMSTRÖM / PHOTOGRAPHY: ALUN CALLENDER

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DR LAURA PURCELL-GATES is the Creative Director of Puppetry for The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak show, working alongside Director Sita Calvert-Ennals, lecturer in Drama. The show was created by Wattle and Daub, a theatre company run

by Laura with Tobi Poster, and funded by The Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England.

use their own words, and collaborating with director David Glass on a project exploring political issues with teenagers around the world. Then there are the projects that approach the central issues from another direction, such as the ‘walking art’ projects led by Richard White, Senior Lecturer in Media Practice, where people address the physical, sensory, emotional and intellectual experience of walking in particular places. In disciplines like this, knowledge is being produced literally within the body – writing about it is only a secondary act.

Alongside performance art, other group members – especially those in the Creative Acts of Resistance lab – are exploring the various methodologies that underpin this kind of research. How can researchers genuinely involve the ‘subjects’ of their research, so that those people are taking an active part on an equal footing with the academics? As the group goes forward, Purcell-Gates and her colleagues hope that these discussions will get off the ground and become activities.

“There’s a lot of research going on across the University into ways that the arts can be brought in for some kind of transformation or liberation for individuals and communities,” she says. “Through our work, we’re attempting first to understand and then to intervene in the way in which power structures work. We’re making them visible, and then questioning them and working to change them.”

47 ADVE NTURES IN ...

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object of fascination? A disabled member of the audience said to us, ‘I’ve noticed how carefully you handle the puppets, and how that contrasts with how doctors handle my body’.”

Members of the Arts and Social Change Research Group come from across the College of Liberal Arts, with specialisms in everything from performance arts to environmental humanities. What brings them together is an interest in marginalised groups and identities, and in highlighting the power structures that cause that marginalisation.

“The arts are on a spectrum in the professional world,” says Purcell-Gates. “At one end, there’s the idea of ‘art for art’s sake’, and at the other the arts are used specifically for a purpose, whether that’s educational or political or something else. There’s a huge range between the two – and we are somewhere in the middle of it.”

As a result, the group encompasses a very diverse body of work, which is loosely organised into three main themes or ‘labs’: Arts and Wellbeing; Body, Space and Place; and Creative Acts of Resistance.

Some is explicitly political – for instance, Dr Agata Vitale, Senior Lecturer in Abnormal/Clinical Psychology, is researching arts as a therapeutic intervention with refugees. In a similar way, Dr Helena Enright, Lecturer in Drama, is working with women in refuges to devise staged performances that

ON THE BUSES FASHION

Jack Capstick (Fashion, 2018) takes one last trip with some of his finest sartorial creations.

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WORDS: DIANE SHIPLEY / PORTRAIT: ANGELA MOORE

M

y love affair with fashion began early – just silly things, like when my mum and I went to the shops, I’d try to choose things for her to wear. My own sense of style has always been a bit out there, but it’s always been mine. I had big bouffant hair and used to wear skinny jeans and big patterned shirts that I thought looked really cool. I look back now and think, “Why did I ever wear that?”

I’m slightly tamer now. I’m a menswear designer and my aesthetic is formal and tailored – but playful, not your average grey suit. Alexander McQueen’s shows were a big influence on me, they created such a theatrical fantasy world. Now I love brands like Margiela, Helmut Lang and Thom Browne.

The past three years have been a whirlwind. I’ve made some really good friends on my course because we were in the studio together all day, all week. In the final year, it was chaos, with clothes and shoeboxes everywhere, and the closer we got to a deadline, the more things seemed to go wrong. I was making a pair

Instead of putting in a pocket, I accidentally sliced through the whole leg.

That was a ‘go get a coffee’ moment

of trousers for my collection in a very nice expensive wool fabric and instead of putting in a pocket, I accidentally sliced through the whole leg. That was a ‘go get a coffee’ moment.

One of the highlights was going backstage at fashion shows. In the second year, I helped a brand called Sharon Walker at their autumn/winter show at London Fashion Week. We had about a minute to dress each model, and there were hairdressers and make-up artists and photographers all crammed into this tiny room, so it was stressful – but really exciting.

Just as fabulous was our end-of-year fashion show at the Bath Assembly Rooms. We had professional models and a show producer from London, and all 21 of us got to show our entire collection – six full looks each. For me, that was trousers, suit jackets, shirts and latex tops – 18 garments altogether. I think that, even more than the degree ceremony, that was our real graduation: seeing what we produced coming down the runway.

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