Open letter to the RCA´s Vice-chancellor and RCA´s community

Kensington campus

During the last few weeks, we have experienced a national strike in the UK organised by the academic staff of the universities. Many students have shown their support because they sympathise with the cause and also because we are directly affected by the underlying issues, many of which are local to the RCA.

As an artist and student, I feel thankful that I am studying at the RCA. It is a big responsibility to belong to this institution with such an interesting and avant-garde history and which for decades has been a place for experimental processes and life-changing experiences.

However, I feel that in the last few years the institution has changed its course, now is focused on showing that it is ranked as the “#1 Art & Design School in the world”.  This branding strategy encourages people to enrol, and therefore allows the college to increase its budget, nevertheless, it has created huge pressure on the tutors and unrealistic expectation on the students. 

The increasing student numbers and increasing tuition fees without investing in the staff and the facilities is annihilating the sense of community, among other issues. Unfortunately, this model only thrives based on the exploitation of the tutors and staff and the economic indebtedness of the students.

These shifts are also happening at other institutions, which from my point of view, is creating a growing social, ethical and cultural crisis.  All this reminds us that the art world, and particularly the art schools, are not isolated islands, and are affected by the current political, economic and ecological crisis.

I believe that the academy is the place for reflection, developing critical thinking and creative approaches, and in some cases, it needs to be the place for resistance as well.  What is an art school? And what kind of art school we want?  These always should be open questions, that demands a wide-open discussion and shouldn’t be answered by external agendas.

This context makes me ask if the wellbeing of the community and the academic quality are still a priority of this school.  Unfortunately, I think that those concerns might not be compatible with the current model of education as service, school as business and students as customers.

The world is changing in multiple ways, and if the RCA doesn’t realize these changes, the institution will decay like many other institutions which are in this process.  I believe that it is still possible to change the path, that a more horizontal way of directing the school still could be implemented, one which the whole community (tutors, students and staff) could trace the way of the institution[i], one which the arts would be at the core.

I am sure that this current crisis is the best opportunity for rethinking in a structural way the model of education that the RCA is creating, and the possibility of imagining and building more desirable and healthy futures. 

Best regards,

Snyder Moreno Martín

MA Sculpture

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[i] According to the Annual Report 2018-2019 of the RCA, “Income from tuition fees grew 18% to £41.3m (2017/18: £34.9m), representing 70% of the College’s core income compared to just over 50% in 2014/15”, which makes me think, why not to consider the needs of the students when investing the money that they are paying. 

White City campus

Battersea campus