About

The Mapping Territory exhibition is the first collaborative student project run by the National Arts Learning Network (NALN), since it became incorporated into ukadia in 2009. First year undergraduates who progressed to HE through NALN member access initiatives were invited to contribute to demonstrate the diverse breadth of creative practices supported by these programmes. The exhibiting students, now in their second year, have produced new work for this cross-disciplinary exhibition.

These emerging artists have met and collaborated over several months to create an eclectic show that brings together disciplines and geographies. We began the process with a reflection on what the map can offer us. Maps show us the connectedness of things, the networks that join us. They are the world spread out before us, unfolded across a desk, illuminated on our monitors – we can trace them with our fingers or float across them on our screens. They show us the roads we might travel or where we have been. These visual representations of an area, a political or geographical region, reveal the relationships between things. Maps, however, reveal other things: the geographical features that separate us (the mountain ranges, the seas), and the artificial markers of political territories. The borders we may or may not cross.

Scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski said ‘the map is not the territory’ – it is an abstraction not the thing itself. It is easy to confuse models of reality with reality itself. But something has changed – we now inscribe the map as we move about with our mobile phones, generating electronic data as we purchase goods, and travel the transport system – the map has become the territory. We are inscribing our personal traces onto the territory. We are collectively mapping our lives.

The work on show in Mapping Territory are representative of the outstanding quality of practices across the member institutions – but what marks out and binds together some of these artists are their journeys into HE. Here the theme of mapping might be understood not only to geographically link these students but also to map out lived experience and a route towards a space for knowledge and creativity.

ukadia is the UK Arts and Design Institutions’ Association, a group of specialist arts and design institutions from across the UK’s higher and further education sector.

Participating institutions: Arts University Bournemouth; Central Saint Martins; Chelsea College of Arts; Cleveland College of Art and Design; Hereford College of Arts; Leeds College of Art; London College of Communication; Ravensbourne; Rose Bruford College

Thanks to: NALN Progression Managers – Pauline Smith, Sylvia Bullock, Eyv Hardwick, Helen Vine, Martell Baines, Dorrie King, Bill Long, Lucy McLeod, Lucy Slater, Samantha Kay, and Kate Hill who all helped to put the building blocks in place.

Other colleagues who have supported us: All the staff at Ravensbourne who have made the staging of the show possible, Pete Smithson at CSM for workshop support, Jefford Horrigan and the technical team for the build, Adrian Phillips for transporting the works, Studio Hato for design, curator Anne Eggebert, Maria Oliver for management, Janey Hagger for project development, and Mark Crawley and UAL for supporting the initiative.

Thanks also to tutors from each college; Phil Beards, Karen Ryan, Sue Ridge, Eyv Hardwick, Celia Johnson, Garry Barker, Susannah Rees, Angie Clark, Samantha Kay, Vicky Wake, Francis Fitzgerald, Claire A Baker. Also Gareth Wadkin, Gavin Waters, and Louise Taylor. And of course to all the artists who are showing work.

NALN was a HEFCE funded lifelong learning network of specialist arts higher education institutions across England, working together to widen participation. When its funding ended in 2009, it became incorporated into the UK Arts and Design Institutions’ Association (ukadia) and members have continued the work which NALN began during its funded period.

ukadia is the United Kingdom Arts and Design Institutions’ Association, a group of specialist arts and design institutions from across the UK’s higher and further education sector. It aims to promote, nationally and internationally, the key contributions of specialist colleges to the UK’s world-renowned reputation in visual arts, performance and the creative and cultural industries and to encourage mobility into professions serving the creative and cultural industries.

Ravensbourne is a world-class higher education institution in London, innovating in digital media and design.