Speaking of anniversaries… It’s 30 years since the first issue of ‘AND Journal of Art & Art Education’ came into being !! A lot has happened in that time yet there are still plenty of issues which directly affect the well being of artists which have not been resolved. It would probably take a radical change in society to provide artists with the same level of economic expectation as enjoyed by ‘NEETS’ …

AND Association was founded in 1982.
In the following year “AND Journal of Art & Art Education” was developed with the first issue edited and produced to be distributed in time for “1984”. In the nineties the printed magazine transformed into a “living magazine” through our ‘eventSpace 1’ project. All the printed editions have been electronically archived with the support of SALT (Istanbul) and made available on-line giving everyone access to the efforts of thousands of people who made ‘AND’ possible… ‘AND’ activities now take diverse forms.

AND Association continues as a voluntary organisation specialising in visual arts practice.
The Association plays an active role in the development of cultural policy and intervenes wherever it can (at local, national and international level) to advance the social, economic and intellectual well-being of visual artists. We are committed to enhancing cultural and educational integration between the public and practising visual artists, provide space and resources to house the arts and assist our members in creative media / visual arts production. Our intention is to maintain “AND” as a collectively run activity.

Below is the main editorial and education section editorial from the first issue of “AND Journal of Art & Art Education”. 

AND EDITORIAL
This publication evolved out of the activities and mutual concerns of a group of artists and designers associated under the name of AND.
The wish to extend our association resulted in a publication project that attempts to place in the area of the art press subjects of debate that we felt either to be missing altogether or only marginally dealt with.
For as well as providing a new forum for the exchange of central fine art issues and the presentation of original work, we are interested in the inclusion of a wider range of subjects, such as architecture and design, with a view to exposing models of comparison for the mutual benefit of the respective disciplines. We are also interested in contributions from outside the field of creative work altogether that nevertheless deal with their particular area in such a way as to inform upon analogous concerns in the arts.
A unique feature of this publication is the undertaking to reserve a substantial proportion of each issue for the specific debate of education in the arts. (See Educational Section)
We think it worthwhile to underline the fact that this publication is not run by critics or curators, but by practising artists. Consequently, we are not assuming for ourselves the role of a conventional review magazine as such; rather we are providing artists with an opportunity to speak for themselves. And we envisage that this opportunity might be availed in such a way as to expose facets of an artist’s work or interest that normally gain little public attention.
As can be seen from some of the contributions to this first issue, we are prepared to publish articles in depth where we think that the length of the article is consistent with the proper explication of its subject. Generally speaking we do not wish to assume for ourselves an expurgatory role, in the belief that, ideally, the responsibility should remain with the contributor.

AND EDUCATIONAL SECTION
It is our policy in this publication to regularly feature articles that specifically deal with education in the arts.
We hope to be able to precipitate a probing debate that will extend beyond parochial and central fine art issues to the role of art education abroad and to the more marginal areas of art education in general.
But most importantly we wish to question some of the principles upon which education in the arts are founded, e.g. should “students” be automatically trained in the inherited skills of the tradition of which they are a part, or should art education reserve for itself the role of the avant garde with respect to the more academic areas of the educational curriculum? Also, in the current climate of state economic intolerance towards the arts, will art education in the future have to find ways of fending for itself? (And it is worth while to note that, in the meantime, how different institutions are choosing to cope with their respective financial cuts is beginning to reveal some of the assumptions and priorities that lie behind their policies that previously were able to remain hidden.)
The subject of art education is of exceptional importance in this country owing to the peculiarly central role that the art school plays with respect to the artistic life of the country as a whole, providing as it does the staple income of its practising artists and the automatic path to be trodden by anyone who decides that art is going to be thelr life’s work, and of course by many others who do not make this decision. Also how someone responds to their art school teaching, whether by complying with its directives or by reacting against them, determines quite comprehensively their future prospects,
Another strong motive for the inclusion of this section is the desire to make some contribution to overcoming the wasteful consequences of inter-institutional and inter-departmental isolation, not to mention the isolation felt by individual students insomuch as they are unable to place their particular educational lot in the perspective of the practice (as opposed to prospectus hype) of other institutions.
In this first issue, we have chosen to devote the major part of this section to the topical subject of the St. Martin’s Sculpture Department. In fact, negotiations are currently under way between the Central and St. Martin’s Schools of Art to launch a joint course in Fine Art next September. It is therefore an appropriate moment to look back at the history of both schools. The following three articles about the St Martin’s Sculpture Department can now be taken as contributions to that history.

Editorial © 1983
AND Journal of Art and Art Education

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