Practical Bravery: DISRUPTIVE UNIVERSITIES!
An episode of the The Possibility Club podcast, hosted by always possible, titled "Practical Bravery: DISRUPTIVE UNIVERSITIES!" was published on December 15, 2023 and runs 33 minutes.
December 15, 2023 ·33m · The Possibility Club
Episode Description
The Possibility Club podcast: Practical Bravery - DISRUPTIVE UNIVERSITIES!
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Polly MacKenzie via LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pollymackenzie/?originalSubdomain=uk
Polly MacKenzie via Advance HE
https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/profile/polly-mackenzie
Polly on Twitter/X — @pollymackenzie
"I love creating new roles but there's this feeling of jeopardy — I have no idea how to do this — and there isn't a model, I can't just follow the instructions."
"I just learnt that I'm called a 'third space' professional, because I'm not an academic, and I'm not just in the professional services departments. Because I'm trying to catalyse change that goes across this whole waterfront."
"We might be just wrong."
University of the Arts London (UAL)
"Grayson Perry has described UAL as the 'world's largest factory for troublemakers.'"
"In academia you're embedded in that 'term' structure. Parliament has this big long summer holiday, so do universities, but I feel like most normal people grew out of that! In businesses they talk about quarters, Q1, Q2, but here it's 'terms'. It's 'term', it's 'recess' and the long vacation. I like the rhythm of the year."
"In our office sections we didn't have any whiteboards. It's weird. You go to the studios, it's like creative central, you go to the offices, it's like a third tier law firm."
UAL appoints Polly MacKenzie
"Give yourself the breathing room, the confidence to keep going, keep plodding, keep asking, keep exploring, keep writing stuff down, and you get to the point where you feel you know what to do."
"Sometimes there's an instinct, a sharpness. I'm a words person, I studied English literature, my deepest loves are poems, speeches and stories. It's not that I dislike art but it's not my medium, the visual arts. So it's been interesting to push myself to try to think in 3D as well as in words."
"There's a strong sense within art school tradition of art as disruption, art as activism. It's the making of something new, and therefore in the mindset of the people who want to do that, and the culture that is built when you gather them together, is to be agents of change. But we've started to talk about something that is more directional."
"Anarchism has developed a branding problem on the left, if that makes any sense? You can't just say 'smash it all to pieces and see what happens' and assume that that is a force for good."
"I think there's a continuum between art-as-disruption,'burn it all down', art-as-activism, which is more directed, or then perhaps art as an act of citizenship, of responsibility."
Nick Clegg, via Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Clegg
The Cameron-Clegg, Lib Dem / Conservative coalition, via Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron%E2%80%93Clegg_coalition
"Any of us who've ever tried to write experience writer's block. There's like a bag but I don't know how to put a handle on it, I've just got noise in my brain. But then there comes a moment when you can write."
taxonomy, via Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy
MSE Charity Fund, via MoneySavingExpert
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/site/mse-charity-fund/
How To Win An Election podcast, via The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/podcasts/how-to-win-an-election
How To Win An Election podcast via Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-to-win-an-election/id1712827143
"I think more and more of us are seeing the inter-connectedness of the world."
Kate Raworth — 'doughnut economics' website
https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/
Diana Coyle, via Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Coyle
"No academic wants to be told what to do by the university, but I think art school academics just like an extra little sprinkling of that sense of artistic freedom. So the question is, what can we collaborate on, where we feel a shared sense of values?"
"We believe that progress is driven by imagination and the practical mechanisms of bringing that imagined world to life."
"I want Britain to be a science superpower like the government does, but I feel like they want us to be a science superpower and none of that flakey, woke soft stuff. But there's no science without creativity."
"We, as storytellers, have the ability to change the mindsets of other people."
"I guess it's called agile, isn't it. Know where you're going and experiment about how to get there."
DEMOS think tank
James Purnell, via Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Purnell
"The dysfunctions of politics are many and manifold. I never experienced any of the characteristics of good leadership, really, in my time in politics. And that's sad."
Mariana Mazzucato, via Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Mazzucato
Arthur Clough, via Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hugh_Clough
'Say not the Struggle nought Availeth' (1849, pub 1855)
poem by Arthur Clough, via the Poetry Foundation
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43959/say-not-the-struggle-nought-availeth
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This episode was recorded in August 2023
Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible
Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts
For more visit www.alwayspossible.co.uk
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