A presentation from the Arts and Humanities Annual Conference 2014.
Students at the Royal College of Art are promised ‘design in an art environment and art in a design environment’. In practice survey data suggests that many students have found it difficult to cross the cultural and physical barriers between disciplines. AcrossRCA addressed this by initiating a College-wide week of interdisciplinary exchange that takes place in the first week of November each year.
Participating AcrossRCA students elect to join student- or staff- led projects on themes as diverse as Food Architecture Future Money and Critical Visualisation. In 2013 441 students took part in one of 25 projects. 94% of respondents to the evaluation survey rated their project as good or excellent and 99% would recommend it to another student. One of the key findings from the evaluation has been the rejection of the fear that exposure to ‘the others’ would dilute the discipline ethos of the College. In contrast the opportunity to work with peers across programmes has helped to reveal what makes us different and what brings us together.
