The first weekend in December saw an intensive weekend of reflection, discussion and planning by the Scotland + Venice Learning Team take place at Hospitalfield House.

The students and recent graduate artists who were the Learning Team members for 2015 and who looked after the exhibition and audiences during Graham Fagen’s seven month show run at Palazzo Fontana, came together to discuss what the most important points of learning had been and how to share this with the larger student peer group across Scotland. The weekend’s discussions were facilitated with writer and researcher Moira Jeffrey. The group has decided to host a day of discussions and workshops which will be open to specific groups of students from the seven partner colleges, to take place during Graham Fagen’s exhibition at Hospitalfield in March and April 2016.

Key ideas which came out of the discussions were ones of agency, power, nationhood, internationalism, conversations, being outwith the safety net of college, collective working and the importance of being proactive in seeing art.

This weekend was the first time that the majority of the group of 28 had been together since their training weekend early in 2015. The partner colleges are: City of Glasgow College, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee & Angus College, Edinburgh College of Art, The Glasgow School of Art, Gray’s School of Art, Moray School of Art – University of Highlands and Islands.

Read more about the Learning Programme including posts about the individual experiences here…