Don't tell me how to run my art school

Title: Don't tell me how to run my art school

Photographer(s): John Walmsley

Writer(s): Claire Grey

Designer(s): Penny Metal

Publisher(s): Self publishing, London, England

Year: 2023

Print run:

Language(s): English

Pages: 184

Size: 21 x 21 cm

Binding: Softcover

Edition:

Print:

Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: England,1968

ISBN: 9781909950054

https://tinyurl.com/BuyWalmsleyBooks

This book is about the sit-in at Guildford School of Art in 1968 which, at the time, was the longest ever at an educational institution in the UK. That schools, colleges and universities in the UK now have students and staff on their Advisory Boards, is a direct result of this sit-in.

On 5th June 1968, Guildford School of Art experienced an unprecedented student revolution, the start of a sit-in about their narrow education and their desire to change it, that lasted for eight weeks. This event marked several firsts in the UK’s education system, including the involvement of parents in higher education, a local authority taking its own students to the High Court, over 40 teachers being suspended at once, and the ATTI lecturers’ union blacklisting a school. Throughout this book, John Walmsley’s photographs expertly (especially considering he was still a student at the time) combine the themes of protest and education. The foresight and dedication of Claire Grey in keeping a detailed diary, as well as collecting a vast array of typewritten notes, posters and press clippings, has resulted in the true inside story of the sit-in being told. She has captured not only the order in which events took place, but also the feelings and reasons that influenced the protest. Her diary entries transport us back to those times, making Claire the custodian of an invaluable historical record.