Beginning of my MA Fine Art : Digital at Central Saint Martins. First session.
Kindness, compassion as ‘psychological safety’ – exploring the idea that these might be the foundations of an art practice as opposed to the idea of progression only coming through the pushy dynamic of ‘challenge’ in a more hard, aggressive way. I’m really excited by this. I’ll sign up right away please for psychological safety. I come from a freelance theatre background, and whilst lip service might be played to ‘safety’ by salaried policy-makers, for the most part one is dealing with rejection and criticism on an almost daily basis – it’s part of the deal. You have literally signed up as an actor to put your self out there and have your self pulled apart, judged and given the ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Maybe the visual art world is no different but I’m excited by Jonathan’s choice to put upfront values of compassion and kindness.
I’m also an improvisor, where saying ‘yes’ opens the portal to creativity. I have two copies of Keith Johnstone’s 1981 book ‘Impro’. Underlined in each is the line –
‘There are people who prefer to say ‘Yes’, and there are people who prefer to say ‘No’. Those who say ‘Yes’ are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say ‘No’ are rewarded by the safety they attain’.
Through my improvisation practice I’ve experienced, hundreds of times, the adventure. Also the ‘no’ sayers, and the safety dulling and literally blocking the work. Saying ‘yes’ – to everything – became a foundational idea. But it is not 1981 and this beautiful, complicated quote contains a lot to be unpacked now – questions about consent, ideas of safety having a value.
What does now feel like for me? The geopolitical world feels like a bin fire. Closer to home my theatre making practice feels vulnerable-making – and sometimes not in a good way.
I don’t have any answers here. This is just the beginning. This is just asking some questions. Getting down some notes.
I don’t know yet what I’m going to put out in the world. What I’m going to bring with me on the journey. I do know that I’m going to take (from my theatre practice, from improv) the notion of play.
Just playing.
Seriously. Just playing seriously and just playing for plays sake.
In the session Olga said a lovely thing about the loss of innocence and play which I roughly remember as ‘when we are adults something is always for something’.
Art-making is possibly the most vulnerable-making thing. A community of practice with guiding principles of kindness and compassion held lightly around the edges seems like a fine idea – not to close off challenge but to enable it.
As Jonathan said instead of a scarcity mindset we’ll be ‘mindful, hungry, generous…the more we put in, the more there IS’
(image : photograph taken from the library of Central Saint Martin’s students dancing in the Street, 06/10/2025)
Alex Murdoch, Artist 