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Threat to ceramics studies
TURNER Prize winner Grayson Perry is among leading lights in the art world who have attacked the University of Westminster over plans to close its world-renowned ceramics department.
The University College Union is spearheading a campaign to save the department at the university’s Harrow campus, after admissions to the course were frozen and its closure announced for 2013.
A petition on the Number 10 website has gathered more than 1,000 signatures including senior tutor at the Royal College of Art Felicity Aylieff and curator of ceramics and glass at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Alun Graves.
Campaigners say that closing the university department in its 50th year would be a huge blow to the art world.
Harrow ceramics department course leader and UCU member Kyra Cane said: “The department is quite unique in this country in that it provides training in the art, craft and technology of studio ceramics, backed up by a rigorous art history and general studies programme.
“Many of the country’s most respected studio ceramists have studied on the course. The school has an international reputation and attracts students from all over the world, something that clearly will not continue if we are forced to close.”
UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “We simply cannot afford to lost such a prestigious department.” |
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