Art Room in the New Union

We need a place to make art on campus!

The only space that currently exists for the artistically minded on campus is the Westwood Art Room (otherwise known as Music Room 3, revealing the fact that it is little more than a music practice room), which is used by those taking the History of Art Practical Art module. This room is not only far from central campus, making the transportation of work and materials extremely difficult, but has flooring that you cannot get paint on! The future of this room is uncertain, considering the downscaling of Practical Art in the History of Art syllabus. The Union meeting rooms, whilst functional for non-messy activities, such as drawing, cannot be used for anything involving paint, glue, clay etc. In the plans for the new History of Art department there is no provision made for a practical art room.

However, as final decisions are made on the Students Union rebuild, we believe that the place for practical art should be in our new union building. As a union room, the space would exist independently of the History of Art department and would therefore be used by and administrated by students for students from all university faculties. Union arts societies (art soc, craft soc, strip soc etc.) would be responsible for the space, which would also be available to any society or individual needing to work on a specific project (publicity banners, artwork for performances, any hands-on, creative workshop).

The signatories have added their names to this petition hoping to raise awareness of the sorry state of campus arts facilities with those who can make things change. Whilst the needs of media societies have been taken into account in plans for the new Media Centre, we feel that the pressing need for arts provision should also be considered.