In reflecting on the role of art at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Conference, Carol Becker succinctly describes the impact and still untapped potential of art for traversing political and financial boundaries (Becker, 2019). She does this by providing an overview of her experience attending the Davos World Economic Forum. Becker, Dean of Columbia University School of the Arts since 2007, has been attending Davos for 17 years. As she explains, “the conference is perceived as a gathering of elites who are mostly concerned with financial success. But [she] soon learned that many progressive, societal issues are also discussed at the event” (Becker, 2019). She credits Hilde Schwab, Chairwoman of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, as a pioneer for understanding the potential for bringing artists into conversations about the state of the world (Becker, 2019). Her encounter with Schwab led to an eventual partnership with Gilbert Probst, Dean of the Forum’s Global Leadership Fellows Programme, which led to the “creation of another programme, now held at Columbia every summer, that helps future leaders gain the skills they need to succeed in a public arena” (Becker, 2019).

As an artist and university educator, this is inspiring to learn. With MA students, I emphasise the importance of using their imagination and creativity to extend beyond current limitations and time–to allow themselves to speculate about the future they hope to experience. And while I believe their is tremendous power in speculative design as a creative process, I am also aware that these imaginaries can easily feel abstract and adrift in academic spaces.

Forming partnerships along these lines and/or having artists and others associated with projects like Collisions and Little Sun (Becker, 2019) would be tremendously impactful for students, LCC and the UAL community; and I aspire to form these connections as part of my teaching.

However, to be pragmatically cautious of the perils of grandiosity, I don’t believe aligning my teaching practice with a Davos partnership would be essential for helping students develop perspective for an applied, situated practice. During lectures, when I introduce new units or project briefs, I can be deliberate about sharing art and design examples associated with culturally significant spaces like Davos. This might help students understand the far-reaching impact their work might have. It can also enhance a deeper sense of ownership and responsibility for the work their ideas generate.

I think it is important for them, and for me to help remind them, to approach a brief or lecture as scaffolding for their imagination and motivations–not an instruction manual for how to be successful as a student. While I don’t believe many of them inherently desire the ladder paradigm, I think it is the responsibility of educators to stretch and frame the formulaic nature of assessment criteria by adding context and perspective into our curriculum as often as possible.