Looking to the future

Within the vision of our Executive Director, Gregor Muir, the ICA exists to challenge the foundations of contemporary art, creating a space for new, experimental and independent arts practice and ideas.

As part of the ICA Learning programme, the Student Forum is a long-term project that offers students the opportunity to shape and develop public events in response to the ICA’s programme of exhibitions, film screenings, performances and public events. It was originally formed in 2008 to encourage young people to become an active part of the ICA, share opinions and connect with contemporary culture.

In the early days, the Student Forum produced a quarterly zine called Institute and hosted a regular club night – Everything – in the ICA bar, which brought together a host of young creative talents in response to the programme. But today presents a point of core renewal for the project, in line with the ICA’s revitalised artistic vision, mission and purpose. This has given rise to a new Forum, made up of students selected via an open call, based on the strength of their ideas, energy and potential to broaden the scope of the project for the benefit of their peers and the wider ICA audience.

We are committed to maintaining a body of students that is engaged in critical thinking and the formulation of new ideas and theories around contemporary arts practice, and who can reflect and respond to the ICA exhibition programme. Students are a core part of our audience: according to our most recent review by Audiences London, 42% of our visitors are in the 18-35 year-old bracket. This is the highest percentage of young visitors to all art organisations in London, including Tate. As a result it is extremely important for us to nurture a sustained engagement with young emerging practitioners and to support their future arts practice.

The Student Forum is essentially student-led; the format is multi-dimensional with various initiatives happening in parallel. It meets once a month to maintain an on-going dialogue between members about their practice and to research ideas for engaging with the ICA.

The events and projects students curate as part of the ICA public programme include peer crits and inter-artist dialogues, discussion events, film screenings, performances, professional development workshops, reading groups and blogging activities. Forthcoming projects include: Existere & Documenting Performance Art – a discussion concerning the virtues of non-visual documentary and the impact on notions of authorship and authenticity; and a series of late-night screenings of films by up-and-coming and established artists, themed in relation to ideas about censorship and consumerism, in response to our exhibition Remote Control.

It is an innovative project insofar as the students are developing through practice, within a well-renowned arts organisation. It is important that the Student Forum functions as a space in which art is not simply explained to a student audience but is a site of negotiation, where forms of knowledge are shared. We aim to structure the Student Forum as a self-empowering community that offers a form of ‘cultural participation’ and a site for conversation and learning. We believe that interesting patterns emerge from the ability to formulate one’s own questions; communities begin to form when there is a shared curiosity and a desire for intellectual challenge.