Greg Morgan, Head of Art and DT, Director of UAL Foundation Diploma at St George’s British International School, talks to Wanted in Rome.
WiR: You have been at St George’s British International School for more than 20 years. Rome is a city most people pass through rather than stay in. What made you stay?
GM: I have actually been here for nearly three decades. It is a uniquely vibrant and fascinating city that has attracted poets, artists and musicians for millennia. From Mary Shelley and Anthony Burgess to David Hockney and Harry Styles, so many creative expats have found inspiration here. Another key factor has been my Italian fiancé and our numerous Italian rescue cats!
You describe Rome as beautiful chaos. How does that feed into what you teach and what you make?
I am fascinated by the process of teaching for creativity. Whilst stability can generate great creative works, centuries of magnificent monuments and sublime ruins, cut through with never-ending building works, are a powerful visual metaphor for recursive creative generation. Rome is the city that sometimes teeters on the brink of disaster. My impression may be very much distorted by the number of hours that I spend driving on the.GRA, Nevertheless, this beautiful chaos inspires resourcefulness and ingenuity, as well as providing inexhaustible visual inspiration.
The UAL Level 3 Foundation Diploma is more commonly found in UK further education colleges than in international schools abroad. Why bring it to Rome, and why did St George’s decide the time was right?
I have been planning an art and design foundation course at St George’s almost as long as I have been in the city. However, recently several key factors have converged in order to make it a more realistic possibility. We now have the perfect art and design teaching team supported by the very best art technician in the world. We also have the support of the forward thinking senior leadership and governing body of the school. Certainly Brexit has been another major factor. It is now very expensive for European students to undertake a foundation course in the UK, whereas previously it was far less costly.
Who is this diploma for? What kind of student should be considering it, and what does it open up for them afterwards?
For many students considering the UAL foundation diploma at St George’s, the motivation will be to develop as an artist and prepare a world-class portfolio. This is essential to allow them to gain access to the very best degree courses. However, it could also be undertaken as a uniquely creative gap year, for other students who are not necessarily planning to follow an art and design related career pathway.
The UAL Foundation is traditionally the bridge between school and art college in the UK. Does it function the same way for students who may be heading to universities in Italy, the US or elsewhere?
The UAL foundation is internationally renowned. UAL itself comes second only to the Royal College of Art in global University rankings for art and design courses. We follow the same teaching approaches and rigorous assessment as their illustrious London centres. The foundation diploma provides UK university points, but also helps develop portfolios to a much higher level than most students will be able to achieve in their 6th form pathway.
You are both a teacher and a practising artist, as well as a freelance illustrator and animator. Does maintaining your own creative practice change how you run the programme?
Directing and teaching the UAL foundation diploma at St George’s will stimulate my own practice. It will require and encourage me to develop parallel works as an artist, in response to the challenges that our students are undertaking. I follow the artist-teacher approach, in that my own interests and practice feed directly into my classroom work. In my most recent MA, I specifically chose to follow an illustration pathway, rather than continuing with my fine art background, I felt that this route would be most relevant to many of my own students’ concerns.
As Overall Principal IB Visual Arts Examiner you see work from schools across the world. Where does the creative output of students in Rome sit in that global picture?
The new IB Visual Arts course (that I helped to write) is now even more closely aligned with the process driven, context and student-centric approach that UAL encourages and enables. IB Visual Arts students from Macclesfield to Mombasa must situate their unique practice, whilst synthesising local and global stimuli. Rome however, offers students a very particular palimpsest of old and new, high art and vibrant modernity. It feeds creative thought and action at an exceptional level.
What does living and studying in Rome give a young artist that they simply cannot get anywhere else?
One of our first Foundation Diploma students received unconditional offers from various UK colleges including the UAL Diploma in London. Whilst she certainly plans to proceed to undergraduate studies in the UK, she feels that a year in Rome offers a different array of challenges and inspiration. What other city contains a temple to 21st Century Art and Architecture like the MAXXI, within a 30 minute walk of iconic structures such as the Pantheon? Of course there is also the gelato…
There is a growing conversation about AI image generation and what it means for careers in art and design. What do you tell your students?
I was discussing this issue only yesterday with the chief moderator from UAL. We have found that most Art students refuse to use AI in their work. This is simultaneously from ethical, environmental and creative perspectives. AI can offer shortcuts for mundane tasks and even produce superficially spectacular video and imagery. However, we are not yet at a point where it can replicate the magical human creative process of trial and error that brought us everything from Piranesi to Punk. The UAL foundation approach forces students to take risks. Our young artists must play purposefully on the edge of chaos, in ways that push them well beyond the predictable or superficial. Therefore their phenomenal capacity to produce acts of effective surprise will keep them ahead of the curve for the foreseeable future.
What is the one thing you wish parents understood better about what a serious arts qualification actually does for a young person?
On a quantifiable level, the Foundation Diploma provides students with additional university points. A Distinction level UAL Diploma pass is equivalent to a 24 point full IB Diploma or more than 2 A* A level grades. Whilst it is possible to proceed straight on to many creative degrees without a Foundation Diploma, it is generally considered essential by the most highly ranked and competitive courses. In terms of creative growth and problem solving, I can specifically talk from my own experience. In my nine years of post-highschool study, including two Masters Degrees, nothing else has come close to the inspirational, life changing and joyful year that I spent on my own Foundation Diploma.
Marco Venturini
