Somerset Education Lab with Arts University Bournemouth

The Education Lab partnership with AUB was incorporated into the students’ final third year project for the BA (Hons) Fine Art. Final pieces will be on display in the AUB Undergraduate Degree Show, 24 June – 1 July 2022.

‘Learning at Hauser & Wirth is concerned with quality and ambition,’ says Debbie Hillyerd, Senior Director of Hauser & Wirth Learning. ‘Our relationship with academic institutions is a very important component, respecting the work of our educator colleagues and fusing new dialogues. In this context, the gallery and its artists can provide an additional space for learning that runs alongside traditional formats. The Education Lab in Somerset is a unique iteration of this, embedding the student’s experience at the gallery directly into the assessment for their BA Fine Art at AUB. The result demonstrates how working together, Hauser & Wirth and its partners can impact on emerging careers at grass roots level, bringing our artists and gallery team closer to the next generation of young professionals.’

The Education Lab is part of Hauser & Wirth’s global learning platform that runs projects for individuals, schools, students, special interest groups and families, through a series of meaningful partnerships. Each Education Lab is a collaboration with a local school or university.

In June 2021, the first Education Lab took place in Menorca and was created as an onsite artist residency in partnership with students from Escola d’Art de Menorca and LA-based artist Mark Bradford. The project shed light on the refugee crisis around the globe, which marked the beginning of Bradford’s year-long collaboration with PILAglobal, a non-profit founded on the belief that all children, regardless of economic or geographic considerations, are entitled to an education.

Building on the success of Bradford’s Education Lab at Hauser & Wirth Menorca in 2021, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles has welcomed 17 students from the Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts based in Downtown Los Angeles throughout the spring/summer season 2022. The students have taken part in a series of workshops and discussions with different departments at the gallery that feature a behind-the-scenes look at how a commercial art gallery operates. The students will continue to work alongside Bradford and his team to create a public arts project that draws attention to the current global refugee crisis and its humanitarian impact.

Meanwhile in Menorca a new Education Lab has launched connected to Rashid Johnson’s exhibition ‘Sodade’, opening 19 June 2022. Two MA art students, selected from an open call distributed to Spanish universities in January 2022, are now in residency until July 2022. Through research, professional practice, critique and mentoring, the residency will provide an opportunity to develop independent work in the context of the gallery, supporting emerging artists, art historians and educators in their developing careers. Hauser & Wirth Menorca’s Education Lab provides an active studio space for the post-graduates to develop an engagement programme in collaboration with the gallery community, local entities and schools.