Year 2023
Topics: home; art studio; placemaking; ephemeral installation; white cube
Contemporary studio space in art colleges across London exudes the elite quality of the white cube. The college studios purportedly allow Fine Art students to make mistakes freely, without having to worry about ruining the décor. The whitened studio space is willing to take up all sorts of activities — splashing, painting, hammering or drilling. It always returns to its initial empty state after the execution of exhibitions, for new works to be generated again without any ‘contamination’ from the past. But do they truly serve this function?
A year 3 BA Fine Art student from Chelsea College of Arts poignantly remarks, “…white space for us is seen as a place for art. That is the mentality that here, we can only think about art.” The white space accentuates the refinement and high status of the art world that is obscured from the messiness of the real world. The chic quality of the space could possibly generate in students a need to create exhibition-worthy artworks. The contemporary studio space is not so friendly as a space for mistakes to occur after all. Furthermore, few students went to Chelsea College of Arts to make art during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a sense of abandonment in these spaces. I am curious about what happens if the whiteness of the space is eschewed by installing a home wallpaper into the space.
This project was executed to accompany the 10,000-word undergraduate dissertation titled ‘The influence of Chelsea College of Arts’ college space on the BA Fine Art students’ educational experience from Oct 2020 to Jan 2023’, which was awarded A+ grade from UAL.
Paintings courtesy of the artist: Katharina Reinsbach
Haiyi He 