Professor Sarah Glennie:

The NCAD would like to be doing many things. Professor Jordan mentioned the HEA funded programme of access to higher education, PATH, which has just started. We always have short-term initiatives such as Ignite; therefore, there is additional funding for a moment and then it is gone. For us, there is ongoing work on access and being able to encourage a broader base into the stream of arts education because that is from where our art makers will come. That is one of the fundamental aspects in breaking down the socio-economic barriers to people seeing themselves as having the right to participate or be part of the creative community, as Professor Jordan discussed. Changing that stream of people coming into arts education is one way by which we can address the issue. The access programme is critical in that regard. It is something about which we are thinking generally in the NCAD. The idea of what an artist can be is really changing, as we have seen in all of the presentations. I referred to the need to challenge young artists to think about what it now means to be an artist or designer or whatever categories into which we put people in terms of the boundaries we put around them. An artist is not just a person sitting in a studio producing objects that disappear into a commercial system and are bought. There is so much more potential in how their creativity can play a role in society. That depth of vision is what we, as an art and design institute, identify as something we will need to embed in future makers because that is where the opportunities will be.