2.2. LCC Changemakers (2020-2022)

In September 2018, I moved into UAL’s London College of Communication and started working with students and staff on projects to review and reimagine curricula, initially through the lens of ‘liberation’ (which was not specifically race-focussed) and then later anti-racism and decolonisation. After one academic year of doing this work, I coauthored an article on ‘Co-constructing a Liberated / Decolonised Arts Curriculum’ with former colleagues Jess Crilly and Zey Suka-Bill. The article reflects on the initial ‘LCC Liberate the Curriculum’ (LTC) project and applies Critical Race Theory to understand how arts education upholds western dominance and Whiteness, explaining how:

‘...the development of an existing ‘art canon’ which is often considered within a framework that spans from 'Old Masters' to the 'Great Modern Artists’ was influenced by the colonial mindset that sought to exclude the racialised as inherently lacking in the appropriate creative or cultural expression’ (Crilly, Panesar and Suka-Bill, 2020).

The LTC project did not lead to all the outcomes of curriculum development it hoped to, but it was a crucial stage for LCC in facilitating staff-student curriculum co-development, a process reliant on students being able to identify and share experiences. Co-authoring the article was also valuable for me to begin to see how principles of Critical Race Theory apply to the work of educational equity and curriculum decolonisation, which is what this thesis will go on to examine and exemplify in more detail.

In September 2019, I was tasked with employing students and alumni on a more regular basis as LCC Changemakers, a role that asked them to draw on lived experience to co-develop anti-racist and decolonised curricula with LCC academics. Through 2020-2022, I recruited, trained and managed two generations of Changemakers, nine each year, to work across the nine academic programmes at LCC. As part of their initial training, Changemakers looked through the Decolonising the Arts Curriculum zines to identify contributions that resonated with them and/or informed them. I supervised them as they worked with academic staff to review and develop curricula, and I identified different opportunities for them to influence curricula, including UAL quality assurance processes for course validation and reapproval. I often acted like their agent in managing the work they would do for others, having to hustle work opportunities for some while protecting others from being exploited. 

Through 2020-21, I worked with them to host two ‘Changemakers Talk’ webinars to discuss the challenges and opportunities in this work with other changemakers, firstly from Senac University, São Paulo and then from the University of Kent. We also presented at other events, including the VOICE conference for staff completing the PGCert at University for the Creative Arts (June 2022). This conference focused on the influence of student voice on curriculum and teaching development with the theme of Bridges and Borders, and I presented with LCC Changemakers Cassia Clarke and Emilio Gotterbarm. As part of the presentation, I told the story of how I began to question ethnic categorisations as a child, and how I learnt about my family’s place within the British Empire and the 1947 partition of India only recently as an adult. Clarke told the story of her family’s journey between Jamaica, Ireland and the UK, and the influences of this on her work as a photographer and Changemaker. Gotterbarm shared his experience as an international student, influenced by this to promote intercultural exchange in LCC curricula. The LTC and Changemaker projects supported staff and students to co-develop curricula and to think critically about their heritage and the histories of their subject disciplines, something we explored more through project 3: Decolonising Wikipedia Network.