Campaigning for more art history on the curriculum

Dr Abigail Harrison Moore from the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage (School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies) featured in The Guardian this week, commenting on a campaign aimed at giving more students access to art history as an A-Level subject.

The Maintained Sector History of Art Project is an initiative led by teacher, Caroline Osborne, who believes passionately in the power of art history education to transform and enrich lives. Through the Schools Group of the Association of Art Historians, she has been leading a fight to bring the subject to more state schools. Dr Harrison Moore will be participating in the first session convened by the Schools Group at the Association of Art Historians (AAH) Annual conference in April at the Royal College of Art.

Commenting on the campaign, Dr Harrison Moore highlighted how she believes that embarking on the subject at school makes a huge difference.

‘I can't expect students coming to study at Leeds to have art history A-level, but the ones who do are amazing. They know why they want to do the subject, they've got a passion for it, they've already decided what aspects of it they want to work in.’

The article also included an interview with Sam Message, who is currently studying at Godalming Sixth Form College. Sam attended a taster lecture given by Dr Harrison Moore at the school in the autumn and has been offered a place on the BA History of Art at Leeds. He highlighted how the ‘analytical’ nature of the way we teach art history attracted him to the subject, allowing him to learn ‘how to analyse [his] own culture’.

See here for the full article.