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Merlin Carpenter
and Nils Norman studied at Central St. Martins from 1986 to 1989.
Séan Kimber and Simon Periton studied there from 1986 to 1990.
Simon now works there as a part-time photographic technician. Séan
works as a Fine Art technician and teaches in the Foundation Department[1]
.
All four are artists. They describe themselves as having "gone to
St. Martins" but in fact the school had already been merged with
Central School of Art within a larger body called the London Institute[2].
"St. Martins" was then for them an imaginary normal and cool
State financed art school, and they experienced the poverty-stricken bitter
end of that system. But in fact things were already changing, in line
with a general trend towards the marketisation of the public sector in
the UK...
Simon Periton:
When Nils and Merlin were there the colleges were amalgamated already
but at that time it hadn't really had much effect. It was still thought
of as being St Martins. The way the courses were set out was the same
and the various departments were still in their original buildings.
Merlin Carpenter:
It did have an effect on me, I spent 2 years at St. Martins and one at
Central.
Simon Periton:
Yes, but that's changed now, there are no painting students at Central
at all now it's all Central St. Martins, part of the London Institute.
Séan Kimber:
Which also includes several other art colleges such as The London School
of Fashion, Chelsea, London College of Printing...(etc.)
Simon Periton:
The biggest change in the last 6 months with reference to Charing Cross
Road (what was the St. Martins site) has been the way the building has
been changed. They've just put in whole new floors, moved the library,
they've moved the fashion department, they've moved whole departments
around, from one building to another. All done in the holidays, with 4
weeks notice, lots of staff being away on holiday and not knowing where
their departments are on returning.
Nils Norman:
But they knew it was going to happen?
Simon Periton:
No!
Nils Norman:
Why so clandestine?
Simon Periton:
Well, the institute now has this policy of doing things, like closing
the college coffee bar, almost effecting military coups during the summer
holidays, because there are no students around to do anything about it.
Séan Kimber:
Or subvert it at all.
Simon Periton:
The Student Union (if it has any power anyway) is always in a transitional
stage from one year to the next. It’s the perfect time for any movement
and change to occur. Not many staff are around, no students around to
be up in arms about it. Lots of the fashion students last year, having
had their interviews in May/ June for degree courses, all thought they
were going to be in the centre of Soho near to fabric shops etc. Only
to arrive in September, with agreed places on the course, to be told they
weren't there at all, they were in Clerkenwell (East London). Miles away
from anywhere. The textile centre was traditionally in Soho.
Merlin Carpenter:
They didn't really think about that?
Simon Periton:
They did think about it, but they didn't rate it higher than getting more
student heads in.
Séan Kimber:
Basically this is a result of the spatial review which was done very secretly.
Simon Periton:
The first really big one was the college coffee bar going in the holidays.
Nils Norman:
That was just trashed wasn't it? Even the guy who ran it didn't know about
it.
Simon Periton:
No, he was away on holiday fishing and got a call from a sympathetic school
keeper saying: "you better come in and sort out all your equipment
- till, fruit machines, snooker tables and all your various catering equipment,
because it's all being dumped outside the door and if you don't come in
you're not going to have a business!" And he was effectively removed.
The only reason it seems it was necessary was that the college management
objected to the fact that Dave (the owner) was an autonomous unit. The
Student Union was piss poor anyway, and the only place students could
meet was in his coffee bar. That's where everything occurred.
Séan Kimber:
Plus it's another 6 grand per year in fees for however many students they
could fit into that now vacant space.... (£ 5,900 per year for overseas
students, £1,600 for European Community students).
Simon Periton:
The bottom line is money....
Merlin Carpenter:
Just how to get more students into the space.
Simon Periton:
The whole thing this summer was moving, ridiculously long-winded and expensive
moving. The official story now is that the reason why they did this so
late was that they didn't finalise the budget until the last moment. So
they didn't actually know if they could do it or not. What happens is
that the Heads of College know what's going on. That's handed down from
the Rector of the lnstitute, that's in turn handed down from a Government
Minister. These various stages all know slightly less than the ones before
them. Then the Deans, who come under the Heads of College, run the various
faculties within the college.
Séan Kimber:
Also they did this moving when they knew the subject leaders would not
be there. Under the Deans are the subject leaders, they don't have very
much power but they have enough power to kick up a fuss and stop things
happening. But they are only employed for 36 weeks a year. They are not
employed for the summer, especially that part of the summer which is prime
holiday time. But don't forget that it is now The London lnstitute. It’s
not a college anymore.
Merlin Carpenter:
But what specific thing are you talking about?
Simon Periton:
They moved another department into one part of the painting department.
Merlin Carpenter:
Which department?
Séan Kimber:
Critical Fine Art Practice[3]. (C.F.A.P.).
Merlin Carpenter:
They just took over part of the painting department without telling the
actual painting department?
Simon Periton:
Not even telling the department who was moving in there either! It's just
a re-jigging of space. For instance the sculpture studio, the main hall
where they held fashion shows, whatever, pantomimes....
Nils Norman:
That was actually built as a theatre.
Simon Periton:
Right. The building is a listed building[4] and what they have done is
they've built this massive (you couldn't get more permanent) mezzanine
floor. They've theoretically nearly doubled the floor space.
Nils Norman:
They've just extended the mezzanine so now it reaches half way across
the hall.
Séan Kimber:
Right. It’s now another floor.
Simon Periton:
It stops just by the stage really, which prevents any sculpture taller
than 10ft. I asked my friend Alan, who works on a building site, how much
would this job cost? They had builders in from 8 a.m. working right through
till 9 p.m. sometimes midnight for 5 or 6 weeks during the holidays. At
no notice whatsoever, so they were obviously on really good earners because
there's no way they could afford to have those people there unless they're
seriously funding it. The total cost is not known, but it would have been
two to three hundred thousand at least. What they've actually gained are
maybe spaces for 40 students and what they are hoping is that those 40
students will then be from overseas.
Séan Kimber:
Which means 18 grand apiece.
Nils Norman:
Those students would be fee paying foreign students?
Simon Periton:
Well that's what they hope. But there's no guarantee that they are going
to get that.
Séan Kimber:
Well there is actually because the subject leaders are forced to take
in overseas students without even interviews.
Simon Periton:
The prospectus is only available in one other language, which is Japanese.
They printed it in Japanese, opening the same way as an English book,
so effectively they published it in Japanese, back to front!
Merlin Carpenter:
By mistake?
Simon Periton:
By mistake.
Séan Kimber:
Structurally they want the place to have a Fine Art degree with different
modules which you go into, rather than a dinosaur departmentalised system.
So that there would no longer be a painting department, there would be
a painting facility.
Merlin Carpenter:
That's all fine but I mean, if they are just cramming in more and more
students, without thinking they would have to give one "p" more
in teaching time or facilities, then it's just going to get worse.
Séan Kimber:
They've reduced the teaching time and facilities since you were there.
They've basically halved the resources and doubled the student intake.
That is why the Rector lost his validation from the C.N.A.A.[5], apparently.
Merlin Carpenter:
So your degree is not validated anymore?
Séan Kimber:
Well it is now, it's self-validating, they now have self-validating status.
There was a time in between you and us and what it is now where the only
institution that would validate the institute’s degree was the Open
University[6]. And they had to pay a hell of a lot of money for that.
So for one year everyone got an Open University degree from St. Martins!
Nils Norman:
So they could have all just stayed at home and watched T.V.
Simon Periton:
The way the courses have changed, which is something to do with the course
which moved into the painting department, what was the F.A.C.S.[7] course,
a 5 year modular course, that ran different days with different students,
is what's seen as the future of further education. A kind of shift system.
Nils Norman:
Mainly older people who would come back to school, having done other things.
Simon Periton:
That's good, it attracted lots of, for example, women who had been housewives
and it's really excellent to encourage that sort of people, but the way
the staff ran the course was a bit of a joke, it wasn't done properly.
Séan Kimber:
The C.F.A.P.[8] course is much better.
Simon Periton:
Yeah, this is a new course which seems to have attracted much younger
students and older ones too. It’s a bit sort of funkier.
Nils Norman:
And is that still over a period of 5 years?
Séan Kimber:
No it's a 3 year degree.
Nils Norman:
But you do your 3 year degree in 5 years. Part-time.
Simon Periton:
No but there are part-time ones as well. I think in an ideal world they
wanted to get lots of M.A.[9] part-time courses. The thing about St. Martins
in the past was that it didn't have a very good image in terms of being
like Chelsea or the Royal College. It didn't run M.A. courses.
Nils Norman:
But surely if they start setting up M.A. courses they need more space.
Merlin Carpenter:
They need more teachers, you can't just have a M.A.. course and not teach
anybody anything.
Séan Kimber:
The bottom line is that most departments need more teachers anyway.
Simon Periton:
What you've hit on is the idea of the part-time course.
Nils Norman:
One student can use the space for half a day then....
Simon Periton:
Another shift comes in.
Nils Norman :
Like time share. You share the space....
Simon Periton:
And you share the staff. That's the ideal.
Séan Kimber:
At the moment C.F.A.P.[10] is a 3 year course, it's just a fine art degree,
but it's critically based so you can go into any other area and do your
stuff.
Simon Periton:
There is also a whole part-time B.A.[11] structure.
Séan Kimber:
There's a much stronger part-time structure. There is also this thing
called D.A.L.I.: Developments at the London lnstitute. They are a money-making
operation. So basically if Simon, as a technician, wanted to run a summer
course he would just go to D.A.L.I.[12] and say "I want to set up
a summer course" they would say "fine, you write it, we'll pay
you to do it and we'll take a percentage of the money you generate."
The whole thing is money orientated.
Simon Periton:
Now at the last degree show when I walked around (this isn't a problem
just a noticeable difference) next to all the spaces underneath all the
labels of people's names, there was this little D.A.L.I.[13] sheet which
had the titles of the work and price and it said if sold, you were supposed
to put a little cross next to it. These would all be sent back to central
office which works out how much money the college gets.
Merlin Carpenter:
Everyone had
an A4 xeroxed sheet next to their work with a chart which you could cross
to fill in if a piece of work had been sold?
Simon Periton:
It was supposed to be filled in as the work was sold.
Nils Norman:
Who priced it?
Simon Periton:
I think it was still priced by the students.
Séan Kimber:
No, no it was priced by D.A.L.I.[13] they have a woman who goes around
and assesses what she thinks the students would get....
Merlin Carpenter:
For all the student work in the shows she assesses the price?
Séan Kimber:
Yes she does.
Nils Norman:
Did you find out how much they took, what percentage?
Séan Kimber:
The painting department sold about £15,000 worth.
Simon Periton:
You mean what D.A.L.I.[14] take? 1 don't know, they probably only take
about 30% or something, it's not a ridiculous sum but they do enforce
taking it.
Merlin Carpenter:
So the buyer writes a cheque to D.A.L.I.[15]....
Simon Periton:
D.A.L.I. then pays the student the difference.
Séan Kimber:
But the institution won't let you take your work out of the building without
their say so because it's the institution's work. It’s not yours.
Merlin Carpenter:
But you still take your work home.
Séan Kimber:
You still do but you're not supposed to.
Simon Periton:
That was the old way it worked and what happened was, theoretically, all
the work that's made while you're a student, when you enrol at the beginning
of each year, you effectively sign away the rights to any of it, but what
happened was at some point in the past then they obviously tried to enforce
the rule. In some college in the Midlands I think....
Séan Kimber:
In Leeds.
Simon Periton:
What happened was a lot of students said OK in that case we'll just leave
all our work here. And they just went at the end of the summer term and
left all their work there. It was more of a problem for the college to
then get rid of all this work or store it, than it was to have the students
take it away with them anyway.
Merlin Carpenter:
Well the students clean up and paint the college every year, don't they?
It’s very cheap labour. And then they clear everything out. So you're
left with a clean empty college next year.
Simon Periton:
Having a show at the end of the year is an ideal way to get the college
virtually ready for the next year.
Séan Kimber:
Another important thing that's happened is that because Central St. Martins
is self-validating (the Institute is as a whole), the Rector has now awarded
himself a professorship and he's awarded the Head of Central St. Martins
a professorship as well. This is what I was talking to you about the other
day, this pseudo-academy that they have created, rather than one which
has existed through conventional systems in this country.
Nils Norman:
And what are these people trained as?
Séan Kimber:
Well, the Rector has a M.A. in philosophy and a B.A. in economics. I think
the Head of Central St. Martins has...
Simon Periton:
I don't think she actually has a M.A.
Nils Norman:
Then what are they now professors of?
Séan Kimber:
Presumably as educationalists, which is quite disturbing, they are professors
of the lnstitute.
Simon Periton:
What's supposed to happen is a self-inflating situation whereby the tutors
and staff, even us, are encouraged to up our credentials as much as possible
and to tell everybody (students) what's going on (in the art world). Which
is a way really of trying to make the college sound more attractive to
prospective students. There is this thing called "staff development''
now.
Séan Kimber:
There is also ''performance related pay". On Monday I was invited
to a party which was paid for by a staff member's performance related
pay.
Nils Norman:
How can they assess your performance?
Séan Kimber:
Money. Number of students placed and students retained on the course and
fee paying.
Simon Periton:
That's not specific to Central St. Martins, that's a really big employment
issue in the whole country.
Séan Kimber:
It’s a kind of post-Thatcherite idea, as also is this homogenisation
of different fine art disciplines. But I don't think that's such a bad
thing.
Simon Periton:
Performance related pay has come from the industrial sector. The uproars
occur when they try to apply it to the health service for instance, how
do you decide how well a nurse has performed or a social worker, when
it's not quantifiable like that. It’s the same in teaching.
Nils Norman:
In the recent degree show, or the last two or three, do you see any noticeable
difference or swing in what artists have made or are doing?
Séan Kimber:
Yeah, you do; the C.F.A.P.[16] show was outstandingly different from any
others that have been at St. Martins.
Simon Periton:
The C.F.A.P. show was different mainly because it was a different kind
of course. A lot more critically based topical work. It stood out from
all the other departments.
Merlin Carpenter:
But basically when I was at St. Martins I thought it was just a complete
disaster area. A nightmare disaster area. Which I could sort of exist
in. I had very little input from any teachers. I didn't know about any
of these regulations. I didn't know who the boss was. I never spoke to
them. I just came in and used the studio space. But the thing is it seems
almost more extremely like that. OK maybe C.F.A.P is better. But it's
still an incredible rabbit warren of horrible little studio spaces. The
whole annex is a rabbit warren now of studios which it wasn't before and
it just has a quite oppressive, incredibly disorganised feel to it.
Séan Kimber:
But structurally it's actually opening up. It’s becoming less bureaucratic
and less compartmentalised.
Merlin Carpenter:
I didn't think it was bureaucratic I thought it was just chaos basically,
and I think it's even more chaotic now.
Séan Kimber:
Well all subject leaders[17] are basically just administrators. This goes
for all art schools in this country. All these artists are told to be
administrators and they don't know what the fuck they're doing.
Simon Periton:
One of the other important things was they were making a lot of cuts on
studio teaching hours. So all the studio-based staff started to get up
in arms about this and said "if you're going to make cuts on studio-based
staff you also have to make cuts on the Cultural Studies staff".
So what happened was they then drastically severed the hours for Cultural
Studies staff: thesis tutors and complementary studies tutors. What we
now have is a situation whereby the heads of various departments have
to now act as thesis tutors. So now painting tutors are thesis tutors
too!
Merlin Carpenter:
Basically these are people without brains.
Simon Periton:
They have brains but they have no grasp of the kind of things that most
students will be wanting to write about. Other than red and blue makes
purple.
Merlin Carpenter:
They are just not qualified for that job.
Simon Periton:
What it meant before was that if you were writing a thesis the tutor that
was your thesis tutor would have to have some knowledge or read the books
that you were reading. Suddenly now there are these tutors who haven't
maybe even read an art theory book from the last 20 years and are being
bombarded with 50 students each.
Merlin Carpenter:
Even though you are working in that place, don't things like that make
you think you're just in a nightmare? It’s so extreme.
Séan Kimber:
No not really. Our input to the students is probably more useful than
what they get from their academic heads.
Merlin Carpenter:
As technical teachers?
Séan Kimber:
No, as, as....
Nils Norman:
As friends?
Séan Kimber:
As friends and as other artists. They come and talk about things that
we used to talk to the Cultural Studies people about. This is another
shift, we're used as teachers as well.
Nils Norman:
What do you think they are trying to get to with these changes, what is
the ultimate operation?
Simon Periton:
They want a production line, an eye catching, self advertising...
Séan Kimber:
The degree show is a product and if the student has a good career that's
good product for the college.
Simon Periton:
The emphasis, in terms of departments, is the financial factor, it probably
always was but it's so much more apparent now. The departments that control
and have the biggest say in how the college is run are the industrial
design and fashion departments. And also those with high profile media
advertising...
Merlin Carpenter:
The fashion department is quite successful.
Simon Periton:
It’s incredibly successful and it gets good press for the college,
even though it tries to pretend it's still St. Martins fashion, it is
now Central St. Martins. The way the whole business is run is actually
much more efficient from the top down. There's a much greater emphasis
on the corporate identity of the London lnstitute logo being on everything
that leaves the college. That wasn't really played on that much when we
were there. To go back to what I was saying before, if the fashion department
or industrial design department wanted to have a particular place in the
college they would more than likely get it at the expense of some of the
more quiet departments like painting or sculpture.
Séan Kimber:
In themselves they are being marginalised not just politically but physically:
they are being pushed to the very edges of the building. As you said the
annex is now this rabbit warren of painting studios. The core of the place
is now the School of Fashion. The 9th floor is painting, the 8th C.F.A.P.[18],
the 7th is painting and from then on down to the first floor is fashion,
then sculpture.
Merlin Carpenter:
So the painters have been jammed, jammerikkied[19] together in the top.
Séan Kimber:
I think they are trying to reduce the whole fine art activity into one
course so they can centralise all the technical resources. But I don't
think they will make it physically smaller in terms of student intake.
Nils Norman:
Does the college now help students get gallery deals?
Séan Kimber:
Yes it does.
Simon Periton:
C.F.A.P. does.
Nils Norman:
They liase with gallerists?
Simon Periton:
The way C.F.A.P.[20] is different and much more successful than its predeccesor
F.A.C.S.[21] (it was set up in the same way as F.A.C.S.) was because the
tutors on F.A.C.S. had no understanding of any contemporary art issues
at all. For example you now have Mona Hartoum teaching on the C.F.A.P.
course, she might not be everyone's cup of tea, but you've got people
who are around and are in shows on a regular basis, so there are connections
through their gallerists.
Séan Kimber:
They have a policy of inviting people like Eigen + Art. They might be
rubbish but they (C.F.A.P.) are doing something, that's not maybe a useful
connection but it does show the right direction.
Nils Norman:
Have they removed certain teachers to get these younger people?
Simon Periton:
No, they've invented a whole new course!
Nils Norman:
When I was there I just wondered why most of the teachers were there.
Simon Periton:
A lot of them have a job for life from I.L.E.A.[22]
Séan Kimber:
Now some of them are just too old. Some of them are so decrepit they can't
get in!
Nils Norman:
I’ve noticed they've dramatically changed the reception area. Instead
of coming up to a security guard at a small desk you now come up to an
official secretary at a very long, large circular desk.
Séan Kimber:
If you look at what they are doing, this is all part of the new London
lnstitute. They are trying to merge all these things (Buildings, departments,
courses, people) into one massive art school (the biggest in Europe) and
I think its model is the Royal College.
Simon Periton:
No the model was supposedly the London School of Economics which was the
knock on to the Royal College.
Séan Kimber:
So they are trying to recreate an academy very quickly, not from any ancient
ideas like Oxbridge....
Simon Periton:
But in the summer holidays basically!
Merlin Carpenter:
It all strikes me as being slightly unconvincing. It’s always about
these things that will happen in the future. It’s not sorted out
now. As a Thatcherite revolution do you think it's actually going to succeed?
Is it going to be a successful Thatcherite college? Is it actually ever
going to be sorted out and clean?
Séan Kimber:
They don't want it to be a Thatcherite college. This is a post-Thatcher
idea. I think it will be successful. It will work. It might even be better
for the students but then in some ways it's going to be rubbish.
Simon Periton:
It won't be good for the students. It will be good in business terms because
if nothing else it will be making money. And how it makes money is by
a glossy exterior and a quick paint job. They've sand-blasted the building
but they only sand-blasted 10ft up in the air!
Séan Kimber:
You have to be a little generous here. There's a room full of Macs there.
Now there's £1,000's worth of software. There are editing suites,
there's stuff you never dreamt of having.
Simon Periton:
I know, but you've got to compare that with what other colleges have and
on those terms the lnstitute is really poorly equipped. It’s got
basically 10 years to catch up. Buying 3 or 4 Macs isn't going to do it.
I can't see how it can possibly be in the interest of the students when
everything is done in such a way as the students are never consulted.
I don't know of any members of staff who are consulted about what students
are expecting.
Merlin Carpenter:
It sounds like members of staff are being treated like students. Students
are being treated like "just get them in and shut them up".
Simon Periton:
Everyone is treated like they're a pack of animals basically and they
are herded around without being told anything.
Séan Kimber:
Only by upper level management, not with people they work with directly.
Simon Periton:
When the Head of the lnstitute says something, then the heads of all the
colleges jump. When the heads of college jump, then the Deans all jump.
It just gets more diluted as it comes down but basically no one is turning
around and saying, "Hang on! No, stop!" No one does that.
Séan Kimber:
It’s panic managed, to prevent people from saying that.
Simon Periton:
You have a management structure whereby you are unable to say anything
to anybody higher than the person who's your direct line manager. So what
that stops is anybody going over someone's head to complain to where the
complaint really should be made, it's just passed one rung up or one rung
down, which is a tried and tested way of stopping dissent. That exists
now in a way it didn't before.
Merlin Carpenter:
There is no reason why the students shouldn't demand things, they are
paying a lot of money.
Simon Periton:
They are demanding things, but you're a student, you've paid your money
to come to college and this is why I think the Student Union at St. Martins
just petered out; unless it's up and running already, no one's got the
time to spend setting it up. Because they are like you and I were, quite
happy just to get on with it, if you were a bit self-motivated and you
could get on without the staff, you knew the system and used it how you
wanted it.
Séan Kimber:
We used the system how we wanted it, we didn't use the structure that
was there.
Merlin Carpenter:
I’m not comparing it now to when I was there, because I thought
it was complete crap when I was there.
Simon Periton:
I would still say it is!
Merlin Carpenter:
There seems to be this other structure within the management now, compressing
everything into this other shape. I wonder if that is going to actually
work? Is it actually going to get it on course to something else.
Simon Periton:
Like I said before what has happened is the business side is where most
development has been. The D.A.L.I.[23] unit generates a lot of money,
in its first year it announced £3 million profits.
Nils Norman:
Where does that money go?
Simon Periton:
It does go back into the college, some of it. What happens is, it goes
back into the departments that generate the most cash. This is how it
works; if as a department you generate enough D.A.L.I. unit activity then
you get the money back in. So photography is a really big earner, everybody
wants to learn photography. Photography has been more popular in the last
5 years than it ever has been in Britain before. So photography generates
a lot of D.A.L.I. activity. D.A.L.I. then pays money back to photography
but at a much slower rate than it's supposed to. The painting department
might not generate that much business so basically it doesn't get fed
back. There are supposed to be more general school of art funds. But it
seems to be so slow in trickling down and back from the D.A.L.I. office.
Nils Norman:
Simon you've been there for around 4 years, how has your pay differed?
Has it changed at all?
Simon Periton:
It’s gone up slightly. But not a great deal.
Merlin Carpenter:
You have quite nice buffet lunches in photography.
Simon Periton:
That buffet lunch means we are on the premises more than tutors who go
to restaurants for one and a half hours and drink a few bottles of red
wine.
Merlin Carpenter:
There is nowhere to eat in the college, there's nowhere even to have a
cup of coffee. There are a thousand students in there and nowhere to have
a cup of coffee. There's not even a coffee machine.
Séan Kimber:
No!
Merlin Carpenter:
But that is extremely bad.
Séan Kimber:
The social life in the college has gone (rasssssp!).
Nils Norman:
There is nowhere for the students to meet at all?
Séan Kimber:
No. They have a lot less money, a lot less than we did as students. They
have less money, they have to work, no social life.
Simon Periton:
Grants were pegged 3 years ago.
Séan Kimber:
Grants are about 40% of what we got in real terms.
Simon Periton:
In the summer holidays they don't get any housing benefit. Housing benefit
to students has stopped in London even if you have a full grant.
Merlin Carpenter:
You basically have to start work the first week of the holidays.
Séan Kimber:
No, you work through the term!
Simon Periton:
Say you've got a £70 a week grant. There aren't many places in London
you can get to rent for less than £50/£60 a week and you're
talking Tottenham and Brixton. So it doesn't leave any money for materials,
which has an effect on work produced... lots of sponsorship deals.
Séan Kimber:
Students are demanding things. But I don't mean demonstrating or protesting.
They demand from us, they say things like, "I pay lots of money not
to bang in my nails, you have to bang in my nails for me!" They are
Thatcherite kids who will get sponsorship from somewhere.
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