Relocating our print workshops to the Byam Shaw campus at Archway
22Feb
We realise that some of our students are concerned about the relocation of the print workshops from Southampton Row to the Byam Shaw campus at Archway when we move to King’s Cross. We would like to clarify the situation to avoid any misunderstanding.
If you have any concerns after reading the points below, please ask a question in the comments. Alternatively you can write/talk to your Dean or to Jim Thrower, the new Technical Coordinator for the 2D area, who is in charge of planning the technical resources for print. His email is j.thrower@csm.arts.ac.uk.
- There won’t be any reduction in the number of presses available to students – in fact there will be more! This is because the presses being moved to Archway will be supplemented by those already there, which aren’t currently available to Southampton Row Graphic Design students. This will make your practice more, rather than less hands-on.
- The additional facilities at Archway will include:
- Litho works
- Silkscreen facilities
- The hydraulic press currently situated at Back Hill, which is also being moved to Archway.
- All the technicians, except one, currently at Southampton Row will be there to support you at Archway.
- Archway is 20 minutes from King’s Cross on the bus. The Byam Shaw campus at Archway is an integral part of Central Saint Martins – the two campuses at King’s Cross and Archway are fully integrated and planned together. We’ll be making sure that you don’t have to move between the two sites unnecessarily.
- We’ve relocated the presses to Archway because we wanted to give you more space and more access, not less. This will also help to meet student demand for digital printing at King’s Cross. This decision is all about responding to student needs – it’s not about changing our focus to digital.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by CentralSaintMartins, CentralSaintMartins. CentralSaintMartins said: @creativereview We hear our students' concerns. This is why we're moving our print workshops to the Byam Shaw campus: http://bit.ly/f0L7HP [...]
This wide spread public outrage goes much deeper than the move of location. It is not just about the space being shoved out of the center of London. The cuts on staff mean that technicians are made to analyse and mark students work.
They also charge students to use the facilities despite the fact they have already paid vast amounts to be at the university.
These factors are all part of the outcry.
It is a very short sighted route that UAL has taken over the last few years, cutting down on actual skilled craftsman ship and not allowing room for experimenting and debate.
They have instead tried to take in as many students as possible to make as much money as possible, not caring about the education they deliver.
Experimental crafts, such as silk screen printing, should be available in every college to as many students as possible. Furthermore, cutting down on technical staff and/or teaching staff in general means that students do not get taught the necesassry in depth knowlegde, skills and understanding the university so often promises and that many other institutes across Europe offer.
CSM/UAL fucked everybody’s Art School
(not in a good way)
It’s an issue of out of sight out of mind.
If the analog studios are half an hour away it implies they are a separate, not an integral part, of a graphic design education. It stops cross pollination of ideas between disciplines and between analog and digital media.
To create a print currently I would go to the photography department, borrow a camera, take a photo, go to the print room, consult a technician, go to the computer room, edit in photoshop, go back to print room prep the screens whilst they’re drying, go down to digital printing to print to film, go back up to screen print expose the image and then start printing…. then let it dry in the print rooms and pick it up the next day for a crit possiblly having to roll your work or carry a large porfolio…
That would translate to:
Kings Cross -> Archway
Archway -> Kings Cross
Kings Cross -> Archway
Archway -> Kings Cross
Kings Cross -> Archway
Archway -> Kings Cross to collect for the final crit…
Thats a trip to zone two each time… Assuming there’s no problems in between which obviously there never is in the creative process.
No one will bother, except the print enthusiasts… You are really segregating your student body not just your print rooms.
Thats just screen printing, imagine trying to bind your portfolio…… I fear the third year.
Thank you very much for sending me that link but i still think this is a horrible solution and a result of disorganization from you. I am a student at Southampton row since 2009 and I was told that this move to kings cross was created to benefit all students by having access to new facilities and making collaboration between courses easier. I don’t see any benefits for any of us, BA graphic design students, in being close to all these new things when printmaking and bookbinding, areas that are VITAL to our course and which techniques take so long to learn and dominate properly will be physically separate on a different building.
clearly this was decided by a minority of office people behind their computers, managing our money and not listening to us at all.
I am a first year student and printmaking was the most popular unit 3 brief. the lists were the first to be full, there are waiting lists and our tutors even opened more places for us as there were so many people interested.
If this does not mean anything to you then I just have to question your efficiency.
Totally agree with Eliza Self. This is shite.
So while you’re moving CSM’s print and screen printing facilities to Byam, what is left for Byam students? I understand teachers and technicians are dropping like flies from Byam. I understood Byam was to remain fairly independent, like Chelsea, Camberwell & Wimbledon. UAL has screwed everything up. It’s a corporate nightmare, not an art school.
[...] at Southampton Row, in addition to some brand new technology. A statement on the CSM Snapshot blog also assures students that there will be more presses and technicians available because they are [...]
[...] at Southampton Row, in addition to some brand new technology. A statement on the CSM Snapshot blog also assures students that there will be more presses and technicians available because they are [...]