Between 2015 and 2021, Freelands Foundation engaged in a collaborative project with the Institute of Education, University College London, working with students undertaking the initial teacher education course (PGCE) in Art & Design to become secondary school art teachers. Every year during the partnership, Freelands Foundation Director Henry Ward worked with the tutors at UCL/IOE to deliver a programme exploring the idea of teaching as an artistic practice.
“Resist – Things Artists Do Whilst Learning To Teach” (2019) follows the project over the year 2018–19, where students explored ways of integrating their artistic practices into the classroom through lectures, discussions and action-based workshops, culminating in an exhibition at Freelands Foundation and an accompanying publication.
Offering an insight into the ideas that developed as these students embarked on their careers as teachers, the film outlines radical methods of teaching that suggest new ways of being both artists and art teachers.