Interview with Emma Edmondson, founder

What was your motivation for starting The Other MA (TOMA)?

I’m from Kent originally and I went to St. Martins when I was 17/18 to do the foundation course, and there were 600 people on the course. We didn't have lockers, people were carrying their work around in suitcases. You used to have to get up at 8:30 in the morning to get your name down for stuff. I remember going for my tutorial and that poor tutor had a
pile of sheets of humans, she was like “who are you?” and she just didn't even know who you were. I left after two terms.

I did a variety of other things after that. In 2008, the great recession, I quit my job and returned to art school immediately, it was kind of a sensible decision, lots of people where becoming unemployed, and I probably would have lost my job working in a dying print
industry. I went to Byam Shaw, it’s part of Central St. Martins. For me it was like the last proper art school, it was really small, all the years cross-pollinated, there was a bar every Wednesday, someone cooked all the lunch food. It was a beautiful space, but in 2011 when I was graduating, Central St. Martins built their new campus at Kings Cross. They decided to close Byam Shaw and move everything over to Kings Cross, this meant that technicians and anyone who was working there were either given their P45 or less money to do the same job. They shut the library down, and the students took it over, they weren’t
looking after people, they weren't looking after their staff, a lot of staff members psychologically checked out before the degree show and you can understand. It wasn’t a supportive space to be in. All of this super shaped how I feel about art school and the bureaucracy in the institution. Then in 2014 I applied to do an MA in social practice at Goldsmiths which I got on to, which is amazing, but a month before it was supposed to start they cancelled the course. So there were 30 people on this course, I got a two line email literally saying this course isn't running anymore. After it had all finished they kept sending me emails saying “Welcome to Goldsmiths”, freshers week etc. and then that December they sent me a letter saying you still owe us fees!

At that point it was like what do I want to do with my life? Then I heard about School of the Damned, Islington Mill, all of these kinds of school setting up. I wouldn’t have been able to access the ones in London because of time, cost and travel, because I had to work to survive. I was working freelance with METAL, which is an NPO in Southend-on-sea. I said
have you thought about setting up an alternative school? I put together this proposal which was basically my dream MA, and they were like let’s see how we can do it, and go and find some funding and we can support you with some admin, space etc. And literally a month later when I was scrambling around trying to find out how on earth I would be able to do this, Colette Bailey whose the Director or Metal, was having a discussion with a philanthropist and she mentioned it and they were like “I can offer some money for that”. They gave me £5k which basically supported me to do one day a week, to set up this idea and the first program.

A good supportive community can really add value when your setting something like this up.  That brings us onto your funding model - can you explain that?

It’s multiple faceted, participants pay £75 per month to be on the program. Ten of the artists pay that this year, and we have two free spaces as well which are supported - Sarah Lucas supports one of those, and we have a private philanthropist that supports the other. Also, this year because no one really wants to leave, and I tried to do two parallel years
last year and I nearly had a nervous breakdown, I’ve created the TOMA Associate. Basically participants that have been part of the program before pay £200 a year and they access a workshop, one of the Sunday sessions, the residency, the exhibition opportunities and also the trips. If they want to access more they don't pay me anymore money, they spend a day invigilating and they get a day back on the course. That’s part of the funding. I make my accounts transparent to participants, I put them online.

I think its good to be transparent, you don’t see where the money is going when you’re at University.

Exactly. I get money from the Arts Council specifically for this space, that is £14,900 and they’ve supported us twice now which is really great. We also get money from donations, through pub quizzes, a donation bar, we do silent auctions - there’s a ticket price and it all goes towards the program. From shop sales we probably make £500 a year, its not major. Lots of different streams, some people will give use £200 here and some of the people who come to speak also waiver their fees.

I get funding from a local solicitors Paul Solictors. We put up art in their space and they give money to participants to fabricate art and put on shows, and we put their logo on the information and the fact that they are supporting us. I am 100% for receiving funding from
businesses, however, they have to be the right businesses. And more and more
thats becoming important to me, and also across the arts.

Since you’ve started TOMA has your model for education changed in that time and  how?

Last year I learned I wanted it to be more research and development heavy, because it was the first time I had the space. I basically said to everyone you can have a show if you want, but actually I don't think that was helpful to everyone to have that pressure, or to do that. This year we’ll be doing less shows, but more group crits and R&D time. There’s still the option to be part of shows, but there won’t be as many. I’ve also put in critical theory, we have a critical theorist who comes in and does 5 sessions, at the end people can write an essay if they want. He’ll mark it and give them feedback. Its not for everyone, some people have dyslexia and thats their biggest fear, or they haven't got the time, its more if you want to do that then you have the option. Apart from that, its stayed the same. TOMA
copies what a traditional art education experience would be, you get 12 lectures a year. Each participant choses their top three artists or people that they want to come and give a talk, I reach out to them in order and that helps shape the program. Everyone puts in what their workshops are, when we meet in a couple of Saturdays time we’ll discuss what workshops we should do, and vote on it. There are three one hour long tutorials every year, with a variety of tutors you can pick from drop in days. Group crits are led by curators or artists who visit - thats one thing that has changed since the beginning, I’m interested in the crit as a model. I do open public crits which is free every month, we get people from all over, people from London, people from TOMA, people who aren’t on TOMA, people who have never heard of TOMA. I’m getting more curators involved with the crits now and starting to get people to think about how the work is placed. Off site visits are really important as well. 

What were your original aims for TOMA and do you think you’ve met them?

The aims have stayed the same, it’s about having accessible art education for people. When I say accessible I don't just mean financially, geographically, art-speak wise, that kind of art school class is quite interesting, and general social classes. For me, it was about creating a community which its definitely done. I would like TOMA to be free or a lot
cheaper a month. When speaking to some of the other alternative schools, they do labour exchange for visiting artists etc., it doesn't always work, having that financial exchange often means that people will turn up. When you put on an event with free tickets 70% of people won’t turn up. If people invest financially they often turn up. I don't hide where the money goes, some of it does pay me for the administrative work, I definitely don't get paid enough - that’s not me being greedy, I think its just if your running something like
this it takes over you life, in a very beautiful way, but also in a way its like “where are the boundaries?” I think I get from the people who sponsor, donations, and the students who pay, about a £1.5 - 2k a year, but most of their money goes towards paying people proper wages to come and teach on the program. As an artist you usually don’t get paid properly, or paid within good time, you don't get travel/ accommodation, all of those kind of things, I make sure everyone gets the same rate and offered travel.

One of the things that I found interesting when I was researching for today was looking at people who were perhaps later on in life, who’ve had children, we had a couple on the MA but it usually people who are younger. You miss out on that whole section of society and their experiences, especially if their career was in something other than the arts.

Definitely. When people do applications for us we don’t ask for a CV. We don't ask what art school you went to. Its about the work. I was finding, naturally, that the people who were attending were mainly women who had supported a family, caring for a child or a partner/relative, women and men who hadn't focused on their practice as they needed to work in order to survive, now that their older, perhaps more financially stable since
they don't have a mortgage to pay. It is a real mix of humans, which makes it really interesting, a lot of people have said that they wouldn't have met otherwise, but what you find is this amazing value that you would never have had.

In terms of sustainability how do you envisage TOMA in both the long and short term?

I don’t want it to get any bigger. If things get bigger they turn into institutes. I was just talking this morning about finding a permanent building and creating a more sustainable financial model through having studio spaces. If I can find a building and set up some studios, that rent could go towards keeping everything ticking over. That is my aim. Have a
space to show work, space for the artists and maybe have some studio spaces to
keep it secure financially. There need to be more studio spaces here (Southend-on-sea) its just getting the buildings, and not having a precarious contract, thats the main problem.

What do you think the implications and impact that art as education are? When I was having a look at some of your work, there was some interesting pieces, like the ‘Art teachers - teaching-art students - to become - art teachers’ piece, it seems to be something you’ve been thinking about.

For a long time I kept my teaching practice, project management etc. all separate, my own art practice separate, and I found it super stressful because I am one person so I'm one thing. For me when I let those barriers down and letting those politicised ideas feed into the practice it felt a lot more natural for me. Art as education, it’s a really good question.

One of the things Maurice Carlin mentioned to me about the IMAA at Islington Mill, was that he didn't want to run the program, he wanted the students to run it, he wanted them to do everything themselves. In some instances these students haven't been through formal higher education. Feedback I’ve gotten from people on the course is that it doesn't have any structure or direction, and a lot of people didn't produce anything because they weren’t driven to do that.

I and everyone on TOMA has said that structure is super important. I know from meeting the other alternatives and from meeting the people on the other alternatives, the one thing that they all get pissed off about is the admin labour. I am paid to do that admin labour for TOMA. School of the Damned get pissed off about that, simple group dynamics are that there are going to be people who are natural leaders, there are going to be
people who aren’t going to attend until the very end when the exhibition is there, people want to get different things out of it. If theres structure there, and someone is bringing together all of those ideas, in a neutral way as possible, you can’t be completely neutral because we’re human beings, it takes the pressure off the participants. It allows them to just come and participate.
This year I am going to hand a bit more control to the group, but only in respect of if they’ve got a workshop on a Sunday, we often met at the weekends and evenings to fit around peoples day to day jobs, I’m going to say come and open the space up that will be their responsibility. It’s really good practice for a group.

Thinking about implications of art as education, have you heard of Rosaleigh Schweiker? She’s a practitioner who usually talks about how she makes her living as an educator like me. I don't make a living through my art but I wouldn't have my education work if I didn't do my art work. There can be implications, but for me I use that relationship to try and
change the real world situation of artists working in education.

I think the reason people are using education as art is because of funding. It is a direct response to funding and public engagement, and funders wanting public engagement and the easiest way to get, not even the easiest way but the only way is to run workshops.

How might dialogic engagement with local businesses reframe TOMA’s or artists thinking of pedgagoies and leadership?

I’ll use the solicitors as an example because it is a very different space. If artists are making work for that space they have to think about what is going to go in there. Someone once put an image of a grave or something like that in there, the solicitors were like “you know we have to have people come in here discussing death taxes and all of that, so we cant have this image in here”. It makes them think about work in that
environment and reframe it in that way. I suppose If I'm thinking about the
participants on the program it helps them to realise that they can approach
local businesses and be like ‘hey, do you want to give us a couple of hundred
quid and promote some shows and we can show that you’ve supported it.

I do interviews as part of Entitle magazine, which is an online magazine I run, and this has fast become one of my favourite questions to ask people so I’m asking it as part of my research here as well - what does success mean to you?

Community. 100% community. And financial sustainability. If you’re financially secure you are able to recycle, you are able, precariousness is a huge part of my research practice as well. Again that goes with recession, we are constantly on this cliff edge waiting for another recession, because they are getting faster and faster and that is the natural
formation of them now. They will become swifter and swifter and more and more
severe, like a typhoon.