Brain Drain
Location: Buckinghamshire New University, High Wycombe
Collaborators: Students, staff, and community participants
Year: 2011
Context & Meaning
In 2011, the UK was in the early years of a new coalition government, determined to slash public spending and reduce deficits in the post-2008 financial crisis era. One of the most consequential targets was higher education. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) announced nearly £940 million in cuts across teaching, research, capital expenditure, and infrastructure — a reduction of almost 9–12 % for many institutions.
Universities responded with alarm: budget shortfalls meant teaching departments were threatened, capital works were postponed, and research funding was increasingly concentrated in the most “elite” departments — leaving smaller, peripheral disciplines especially vulnerable.
Simultaneously, students across the country mobilised. In late 2011, massive protests erupted — notably the London march against tuition fees and the “privatisation” of higher education, met with heavy policing. These protests were part of the broader UK anti-austerity movement, which in March 2011 drew between 250,000 and 500,000 people in a “March for the Alternative,” uniting public sector workers, students, and community groups in opposition to sweeping cuts.
On campuses, occupations and direct actions were part of the terrain of resistance. For example, at the University of Glasgow, the “Free Hetherington” occupation lasted months in protest to proposed cuts and structural changes to the institution. Meanwhile, student groups examined the role of higher education under neoliberal policies, framing the struggle not merely in funding terms but as a critique of how education under austerity becomes commodified, hierarchised, and less accessible.
In this fraught climate — threatened courses, staffing uncertainties, and an atmosphere of deep instability — I initiated this mural project as lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University. It was not simply symbolic: it was a co-creative intervention. I offered to transform a wall into a forum — giving students a space to voice anger, confusion, hopes, and critiques.
The Mural / Process
The central form featured a speech bubble, intentionally left blank for participants to write in. Students contributed directly to the work: slogans, drawings, reflections — layering voices over paint, making the wall a living archive of dissent.
The act of painting together, dialoguing, inscribing public statements on campus walls, was itself an act of communal solidarity.
Over time, the wall’s surface evolved. New inscriptions layered over older ones. The mural became less a fixed piece and more a conversation — contested, fragile, alive.
Interpretation & Legacy
This piece sits at the intersection of art, pedagogy, and activism. It challenges the distance often presumed between “artist” and “audience,” instead breaking the barrier: the students became co-authors, not passive observers.
Thematically, the mural engages with agency, public space, and institutional critique. It visualises the tension between the flux of student voices and a university structure under pressure. It holds space for voices often excluded in policy debates — especially those of young people coping with austerity’s direct effects.
It also resonates with my longer practice of ecology and systems thinking: just as ecosystems endure stress, competition, and collapse under external pressures, so too educational ecosystems must adapt or fracture under austerity. The mural becomes a metaphor for resilience — through collective action, voice, and care.
After public exposure and local press coverage, the mural became more than a teaching exercise. It became visible protest. It reinforced the message: in times of austerity, art can be amplification, critique, repair, and refuge.