Crits is a central part of art school and often seen as a rites of passage. However, it is also a stress-inducing model. From my own experience and on reflection, I think the reliance on crits in art school for feedback has turned away a section of students. As I teach on Year 3, there’s generally half of the cohort who rarely or never turn up to group crits unless they are mandated for assessment. Who would blame them if this is a stressful, embarrassing experience from which they obtain little educational value?
Crits are an essential component of art school because it can be a very successful model for verbal feedback and a non-prescription style of teaching that dovetails the dialogical approach in art and design education especially on fine art courses. However, this modality might suit only certain types of students.
This is confirmed by the study by Peter Day from Wolverhampton University in 2012 (find it here). His research showed a) deep concerns amongst students towards being criticised; they expressed emotional and fear towards feedback, this is amplified by the public nature of the Crit. b) students who are struggling the most benefit least from the crit model. These students have nothing or little work to show or to contribute to the conversation and often feel ignored. The crit can therefore be divisive, splitting those students for whom the process works and those for whom it does not.
To be truly inclusive, art schools need to provide more different types of discussions of works to enable those students who do not tune into this type of learning to benefit from feedback. This can mean greater tutor contact and individualised support, smaller groups, more peer-to-peer feedback.
On reflection, it’s not necessarily the crit that is bad, but the timing and format of it. In my experience, the college have tried to change the name of crit into something else – “discussion”, “presentation of work”, “conversation about the work”, etc. Changing how you name it is not enough if you don’t change the framework or ground rules. Ideas to improving the crit could be, as suggested by the research, to explore the student role and voice as well as by providing clear guidelines relating to the role of subjective and constructive feedback.
However, the format won’t necessarily address the psychological and self-esteem related to the fear of “being criticised”. Many art students use their artworks as conduits to externalised their trauma. Sometimes the art school environment that emphasises criticality in their art practice is simply not the right place for the artist to feel seen, heard and supported.
My former classmate and a veteran art lecturer Geraldine Snell has just launched “heart school“, a holistic, person-centred and wellness focussed approach to nurture creative expression. This really filled the void and a urgent need that I see in art education. Of course, this sits outside of the critical framework art schools around the world endorses. This however does not mean that us as tutors cannot glean from other more wholistic and healing approaches to coaching and adjust our methods for certain groups of students.