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A Particular Reality (APR) was founded in 2018 through a collaboration between students and lecturers at Goldsmiths and Kingston, in response to experiences of racism, isolation and exclusion in UK Arts Higher Education.

APR emerged as a collective approach to addressing this lack of meaningful engagement and support, proposing different formats and models for practice-based learning than the Arts Higher Education institution commonly provides. APR has expanded and developed into a cross-institutional, educational collective where co-learning is key, also collaborating within Manchester Met University. Facilitating collaborations between marginalised students, educators, artists, organisations and allies, our work addresses art, learning and anti-racism, within and beyond practice-based learning. Likened to an ‘after-school club’, APR is a reaction to the institution, but still in relation to it. APR operates at the margins of the art school curricula and independent studio format.

Who are we?

Projects

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This short film has been commissioned by the Freelands Foundation as part of SHIFT - an original series of short films spotlighting varied practices, approaches and philosophies within art education.
APR collaborated with Goldsmiths students and Alumni through a participatory process of co-writing and recording a script, this short film was an opportunity to share practice and research exploring anti-racist, decolonial and collective approaches in art practice and education as well as community building, care and representation.
credits:
Xuan Yeo
Sonya Woodruff
B.A Adeyemo
Dain Jeong
Ali Eisa
Lena Hannigan
Chantel Okwesa

SHIFT (2025)

Shifting the Margins PDF

Shifting the Margins is a year-long A Particular Reality research project initiated in the summer of 2022. This project was born out of a need to collectivise and analyse the contradictory conditions that students and faculty face within the university. We developed a programme that brought artists, thinkers, collectives and teachers within practice-based eeducation courses to share with students their knowledge and experience within and beyond the framework of the University setting. 
This book aims to address A Particular Reality’s research findings by examining the university experiences of students from practice-based learning courses, particularly BIPOC and marginalised students and staff. It researches, charts and collates resources from case studies conducted by the Shifting the Margins co-researcher team – for tutors, within practice-based courses, to inculcate these models within their teachings.




Shifting the Margins (2022-2025)

Negotiating Bodies substack

A podcast episode exploring intersectional approaches to disability, race and the body co-produced with curating students and secondary school pupils from Thomas Tallis School

The Able body (2024-25)

Re-Imagining Crits Zine PDF

‘Re-Imagining Crits’ (2023) - a two part workshop which first held space for students to share and collectively unpack their past feelings, experiences and struggles faced in crits. This was followed by a session collaboratively constructing practical methodologies for approaching crits, by which the issues described in the previous session could be addressed, responded to and reimagined. The outcome of these workshops was a series of three APR ‘alternative crits’, in which six students and alumni from Goldsmiths, Kingston and Middlesex Universities’ Fine Art courses shared works, research and practices. These presentations were framed within crit models collaboratively devised by participants in the past workshops, and successively remade and improved upon by staff members through feedback from attendees after each session. 
All of the documentation, writing and research is available to read in our zine linked below

Reimagining crits (2023)

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Take Up Space was a series inviting APR’s members to use our residency space at Goldsmiths CCA to make work, test out ideas, collaborate with others and hold conversations – particularly encouraging those who identify as BIPOC and from other marginalised or intersectional backgrounds to ‘take up space’ where they do not often get to do so.

Take up Space (2021- ongoing)

ArtSchool Podcast with A Particular Reality | Afterall (2024)

Click to see

This essay by Michelle Williams Gamaker details the innovative pedagogical strategies developed within APR to support BIPoC/Intersectional students on practice-based courses to develop strategies in non-hierarchal, co-learning.

Essay: Developing a Nuanced Pedagogical Methodology in Practice-Based Higher Education Courses (2023)

Video

This workshop was an open invitation to imagine what an anti-racist classroom might look like. Together we will explore possibilities for and methods for embedding values of art, learning, and anti-racism in the classroom. We will consider approaches to the physical environments we learn in, the curriculums we are taught, and emerging and alternative pedagogies that promote equity and justice.

This workshop is part of a series that APR members Ali Eisa and JJ Chan will be developing in collaboration with Goldsmiths CCA and local schools, to promote practices of anti-racist education.

What does an anti-racist classroom look like? (2022)

Watch the video here

This video is an evaluative report of the efficacy and future potential of the collective: A Particular Reality, also known as APR. The aim of this report is to evaluate and analyse the efficacy of APR in addressing the disparities experienced by BIPOC and marginalised students and staff in fine arts higher education.

This report was created by Samia La Virgne and Zubair Shafiq, who were employed by APR as Research Associates, to work with APR stakeholders to generate an evaluative toolkit for ongoing use with project participants. Samia and Zubair were supported by Project Administrator Abhaya Rajani.

A Particular Reality Video Research Report (2022)

Click to learn more 

For APR’s first in-person meeting with students from London and Manchester, artist Clémentine Bedos led an A Particular Reality x The Intersectional Hydra II workshop, as the first of four Intersectional Hydra II workshops facilitated by Clémentine with Manchester School of Art. This session was a chance for APR’s members to come together, meet new people and make connections across the three institutions.

The Intersectional Hydra II project will take place in a series of workshops over the coming months, culminating in a zine. 

The workshop focused on breathing and being together, informed by Clémentine’s practice as an artist and educator, planting seeds and thinking through tools for working within the art school/art world – asking who should provide these tools, why should we need them and what can they be?

APR x The Intersectional Hydra II (2022)

In March 2022 Tara White (Goldsmiths alumni and APR contributor) spoke alongside Kabir Jhala, Harriet Cooper and Dr Rachel Warriner as part of a debate initiated by MA Curating students at The Courtauld, investigating the contemporary conditions of collective practices in art.

All in it Together: Are Artist Collectives the Future of the Artworld? (2022)

More info

Olivia Sterling hosted a life drawing workshop for students within her solo exhibition ‘Really Rough Scrubbing Brush’ at Goldsmiths CCA, a series of painted works depicting colour-changing bodies through the act of tanning or fake tan. Sterling’s graphic works combine totems of British culture with coded objects, foods and images of consumption; creating complex compositions which utilise slap-stick, absurdity and the language of cartoons to examine tropes of race and body image in the UK.

Olivia Sterling Life Drawing Workshop (2021)

Click here to see Zine

This zine looks at collaborations of students from Goldsmiths and Manchester universities and APR.

APR Zine: Edition 1 (2020)

Click here to find out more

The project was intended to forge creative connections across the city of London, between individuals who identify with 'feeling isolated' in respect of their cultural identity and lived-experience. The isolation that many young artists speak of is likely to increase if left unchecked and if the potential communities that could strengthen their practice remain atomised. Students from Goldsmiths and Kingston expressed a desire to be proactive in helping to address the situation, not only for themselves but for the benefit of future students.

A total of thirty-eight first, second and final year students who are engaging directly with these issues responded to a call out. They have met twice, at Raven Row gallery and Goldsmiths, to share ideas and food and to discuss how and whether their experiences are manifested in their work. 

Fake Woke Situation is a compilation of video, image, text and sound; chosen excerpts and documentation of individuals’ work.  

Fake Woke Situation (2019)

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A Particular Reality / – Art / Learning / Anti-racism

A Particular Reality

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A Particular Reality

Art | Learning | Anti-racism

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