Experiments in Autonomous Art Education in the UK, 2010-Present

This paper critically surveys and contextualises the recent wave of autonomous art schools established in the UK since the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding & Student Finance, or Browne Review. It argues that these institutions have been formed as a direct response to this economic policy and the broader neoliberal economisation of higher education. By drawing upon the work of the Edu-Factory Collective, and the Autonomist Marxist theory that inspired their project, this paper argues that these new alternative art schools can be understood as ‘common autonomous institutions’. Furthermore, that they represent genuinely viable alternatives to the commodified, financialised, and marketised state provision. Finally, drawing upon the work of Santos, three alternative art schools (The Other MA, Southend, UK; The School of the Damned, London, UK; @.ac, UK) are analysed as nascent forms of the polyphonic pluriversity.