A letter to the universities
What is wrong with the Universities?
The year is early 2018 and I am being hammered by my family to make a quick decision. It's not as if I am not interested in studying further, but, I do not know what it actually means to study, other than for earning money. Universities are increasingly playing a major role in the overall growth of youngsters, or at least that is what the papers coming out of Academia claim. Before embarking on this journey, from India to a far-away land, I would have guessed, although in vain, that everyone in the United Kingdom is educated and enjoys the highest level of academic literacy. But, after stepping foot in the university, I came to an understanding, that this was not the case. Many of my friends in the university halls were first time university-goers, that too from their entire family. One can almost not imagine this scenario when one thinks of a first-world country like the UK.
How did universities come into existence?
To answer that question we must think of what it means to teach kids, to form their minds at an early age. The farthest we can go to think of an educational institute in our history is at the Mesopotamian time. Almost every culture in the world since then, has had a disparity in the education system, only the sons of the rich and the powerful class were sent to receive a formal education. The girls everywhere throughout time stayed back at home to learn the basics of cooking and house-keeping. This is still an ongoing practice in countries like India, Pakistan and some other middle-Eastern countries.
The base of modern university education can be found in the wish for the state to expand their territory beyond its borders. A formal military education was given to the citizens to follow the rules and commands posed from the higher authorities. For a society that is controlled, you need to form their minds in an order of events from their childhood in which each time that they conform, it seems the most obvious thing to do. This conformity that starts from childhood trickles well over to the universities. Fake debates and fake political events are enacted as to seem legit. An interest is generated in young minds about politics, science and recenty about Automation and Digitisation. Everything only seems ‘real’ and it is designed to be that way, to only seem real on the outside. Underneath this runs the heavy machinery of the system, the society which runs its ways. Frankly, no one person guides or controls these changes. It is easy to dismiss it upon the illuminati or some secret society. It is easy to fall prey to conspiracy theories. The truth is, human mind is structured in such a way that makes it easy to play with.
That’s what university felt like — a space designed to conform young minds. Here’s why.. I was a student of Arts, a mature student in a class of otherwise teenagers. I was there to learn, to doubt, to enquire, to create, but all I got was a class full of students who were busy on tiktok and snapchat. Almost everyone around me, barring a few of course, felt lost. They were either drinking on most parts or high on ketamine. Student housing felt like a jail cell where one open space, which was the hall, was always reserved for some celebrity gossip show or some anime. Life was weird for me. I found it hard to gel in. Yet, when I went out and met people who were in their 50’s, or the ones who were outdoors, I often felt a deeper and stronger connection with them. Why was it? The answer seems simple now. It was the lack of social media usage among the adults. They had travelled around. My peers on the other hand were fixated on their phones, sending nudes on snapchat and watching non-sensical stuff on tiktok. I knew that this was disturbing the university and yet the university was promoting all this.
I was fed up when I wrote this letter to my academic head—
As one walks through the hallways of university and library as an art student, one is compelled to ask this question.
What is Art?
Art is the beauty that guides humanity out of its daily existential traumas and the thoughts of our finite experiences in this world. It is a thing that gives meaning to this world. It is beauty beyond experiences. Art comes from experiences and an unconscious realm where things float around for eternity. Once you have established a relationship with beauty, that can then expand. By learning the arts, sciences, history —one can familiarise oneself with what has happened in the past and fill their mind with the collective wisdom of the civilisations past.
“To create is to live twice”
Pretty sure Albert Camus was referring to the death of the past self and death of knowledge that is already known and then to live again balancing through the order and chaos of this world. It is necessary to break that knowledge for one’s own good to live rather than merely exist.
I think universities in this day and age focus more on specifics rather than making students deeply understand what that relationship with art is. In doing so, they put out a precedent that to create art is to sell, which is understandable to some extent. We need to put food on the table. But, in my opinion, as we need to know how to sell ourselves in this increasingly complex and technologically advanced world, we also need to know how to create and why we are creating. To create, not only in a technique-oriented way but in a way that we know what we are creating. The discussions that happen beyond the limits of the classroom, motivate art. Those discussions I felt are absent, or maybe it’s just my course. The attention span has gone down with the influence of technology and we no longer have deep meaningful discussions but rather pointers. Tell me what you want to tell me in one line, almost like a newspaper headline. How is it possible?
How do we contribute to this world?
Real life starts outside the arena of the university-space. But, to think consciously and lead there, the education has to come from the universities. The universities no longer educate. They only make people fit into one box or another. Most of us when we walk out, are not going to be photographers/artists. Why not? I think the one’s coming to the university for an art degree and the one’s in the university, both, have to ask this question to themselves.
Is it because the critical discussions were absent in the course?
Is it because everyone is too busy in their own life to give time to others?
Is it because the students and the academics are living in two separate timelines given the use of internet??
I think it should have been a collective effort moving forward. The course has rather become a professional training ground into the world of structure. Thinking out of it is a sin. Degree is a piece of paper that hardly anyone cares about in the outside world. Whenever I had to talk to people, my knowledge and my understanding was what gave me confidence and not really the degree. No one has ever asked if I am qualified enough to discuss the topics that I discuss.
Can we understand the techniques and then break them?
It is of great importance to know how to use a camera and how to use lights, but, what is more important is to know why and when to use them. The formation of ideas come before the use of technique. There was a heavy emphasis on “I have this problem or I have that problem”, rather than looking at the problem creatively.
Writing. Writing is an element that again comes into the creative dimension. Who cares if there is a grammatical error. The main thought should be, “is the message conveyed properly”. There are proof-readers when one is writing a book to do that. The grading for what one writes seems a false exercise, at least in my opinion. One can write 200 pages of nothing but facts gathered from around the internet, twist a few words, and present it as an original analysis. Whereas, others can write 10 pages of thought-provoking originality. How are they graded on a similar basis? We write so that someone can grade us and not so that someone understands what we really mean. We do not write as if some person is reading, we write, knowingly sometimes, that it is going to be based on preconceived conceptions of what students have written in the past. There is something to class it against.
What’s the use of universities if I am only being asked to copy-paste work of artists, who have brought their art from the genuinely creative corners of their mind.
Obviously, I was never going to get a reply. I was instead asked to meet and discuss.
When I met the academic, I asked her the same questions.
She was swift to point out thus,
“Universities are here to legitimise you as an artist.”
I was quiet. I left without saying a word, but I could hear Van Gogh laughing in his grave..
Thanks for reading. If you are still here, I would take this moment to direct your attention to a book I have written. This book is almost 2 years in the making. In 2022 I left off on a walk across India and ended up walking 1800 km from Narvan on the west shore, to Visakhapatnam on the east shore. Initially to document the issues plaguing rural India, the project unfolded to become an unforgettable voyage of self-discovery; involving sleeping in unfamiliar places, venturing alone through the Naxalite insurgent jungles, and even being interrogated in a jail cell.
After contemplating on what is the right way forward, I have come to the conclusion that I will self-publish it- and I did. If you are interested in reading about my journey and supporting me to become a full-time writer, please consider buying “Journey to the East”- which is currently available through my website. www.ashutoshjoshi.in
If you would like to help me out in other ways, you can buy me a coffee via paypal, www.paypal.me/ashutoshjoshistudio. You would think that a couple of dollars/pounds won’t mean much, but it does, especially in India.
You can buy my first book “Journey to the East”, a memoir about an 1800 km walk through India, through my website .
If you would like to buy prints of my photographs, you can choose the photographs you like on my website and send me an email. I will send you custom quotes for the sizes you’d like.