What is the point of art school ?

'Creative Curiosity is always intellectually restless, its always 

lateral against the linearity of rationality' 

Jeremy Till, Pro Vice Chanceller of Central Saint Martins

I have been attending Central Saint Martins doing my masters in Innovation Management for around 9 months now. I have been particularly bad at writing here. Which is ironic as a key thing they continue to teach you is to reflect on your work which was kind of the point of this blog 7 years ago. One thing I have particularly loved moving to London and now even more so at CSM is the creation of cultural capital. 

Art, design, film all this cultural capital that expresses itself in a multitude of ways is one of the reasons I would struggle to return to Australia. Everyone jokes about the lack of culture in Australia but it was never more evident than when I showed my father an article in Monocle magazine about CSM and a project I was working on. 'Oh you go to an art school'. Its what a lot of people think. But I feel the opposite. I was educated in a linear rationale way that I never understood. I always struggled with a world that was created around assumptions. Why do we do that. Just because we do. That makes no sense. I used to say to my father when I was younger. I was exceptionally curious and that has never faulted as I got older. I then got to the UK where a huge history built a structure of even more assumptions. But the interesting thing was that their was an alternative. An alternative for people that didnt just want to live one way just because. That wanted to explore beyond that for themselves but also for a greater purpose.

The problem now is that the opportunity and environment in which you are encouraged to open up your point of view is being controlled. It is being held back by those rational people who dont see the value in art. CSM ran a conference recently called 'Whats the point of art school?'. It would take me too long to write my point of view and to be honest its still a prototype. But I have seen the value not just for myself but for the wider construct of the world in which we live. I think a key component of this argument is talk in the language in which the rationale's will understanding. I have been looking at the list of Alumni from CSM recently. What if you picked the top 100 CSM alumni and compared it to a business school like Warwick. Then compared the value they have brought to the economy but also other elements of society. Also look to minus the bad elements like money pulled out of the markets. This maybe would start to see that in order to get out of the mess that the rationales got us into. That the business school model of looking at previous casestudies to better establish what to do doesnt work.That you are going to need some pretty bloody creative people to get us out of it.