Social justice is a structure within a society built on the pillars of rights for all (gender, race, creed, LGBTQ+, disability) access, participation and equity. By having such measures in place, a just society can be maintained in spite of individuals not aligning their hearts and minds to the values. Traditionally food, shelter and education have been considered essential needs. I would say that ‘quality should be inserted before each of these and that a spiritual or soul making dimension be added which would include free access to the more than human world or natural environment.

Coloniality is our current social reality and gets in the way of equity and justice. 

In Feminism and the theory of Nature, Plumwood states that It is usually in the liminal spaces or the edges where great’ tectonic plates of theory meet and shift’ creating upheavals. She goes on to say that If the four tectonic plates of liberation theory-oppression of gender, race, class and nature- came together the tremors would shake the conceptual structures to the foundations. The foundation being the colonisation and domination by patriarchal rationalism. Most accounts of environmental philosophy are heavily inhabited by a masculine presence retaining the dualistc dynamic albeit subtle or in guise. The western logical structure of dualism and so negation and Otherness  is the basis for the connection between forms of oppression- modernity. Plumwood states that ‘the concept of reason provides the unifying and defining contrast for the concept of nature, much as the concept of husband does that for the wife, as master for slave. Reason in Western tradition has been constructed as the the privileged domain of the master who has conceived of nature as a wife or subordinate other encompassing and representing the sphere of materiality, subsistence and the feminine which the master has spilt off and constructed as beneath him’ to be conquered and exploited engendering ‘Progress.’

Plumwood goes onto speak about the accusation of ‘wild woman’ and finally gives a compelling account of Care and Ethics as resistance and a way of changing the master story.  Reason is not banished to the underworld, instead emotion reclaims her voice as reliable and reflective, crucial and creative and doing so affirming neither the irrational nor anti- rational. Perhaps it’s time to plant our own seeds of sympathy and humility and respect the other silenced voices whose kin is the land. 

I draw upon John A Powell’s stance of belonging as being ‘Fully Human” and being respected as the sustainable solution to colonial de-humanising and ‘Othering.’

Ample studies show the relationship between belonging and well-being and becoming a crisis after pandemics, wars and climate change, all results of colonial oppression. We can co-create learning experiences and show students that they matter and are welcomed as they are.

All of us have the power to recognise and address a space characterised by radical love and 

belonging, without judgment and so creating safe spaces in an otherwise precarious world. A place where the student can express themselves, be heard and remain silent and find time for reflection in silence without pressure. Reflection and silence being recognised as major factors in learning. 

I have also found inspiration in the exhibition, Play Well at The Wellcome Trust in 2020 which asked the  question why do we play and how important was that for all of us, young and old? It made the case for play as an essential tool, crucial in developing and refining character traits and skills like self esteem, co operation and problem solving. It explored the joyful instinct to play and its role in learning as well as its role in developing social bonds emotional resilience and well being. It showed how play through the simplest of tools, paper and pencil, drawing/mark making can be employed as a language to express emotions and build empathy. (The (Wellcome Trust 2020). 

After many many discussions and conversations with staff and students I came to the conclusion that the safe space needed or even craved for was a drawing/mark-making space. After all is an Art College really an Art College when the most basic creative tools are no where to be seen. Has digital technology colonised the institution and marginalised the paper and pencil? How can we create a space of compassionate belonging where belonging is ‘being fully human’ whilst only engaging with technology that contributes to dehumanising. Due to the physical exhaustion from the complexities of the contemporary world, it isn’t always clear what is needed to feel fully human. What does it mean to be human?  Can a drawing practice create a space to think and dream? Can the drawing table become a place where relationships are built and stories shared, where material connects to the knowledge of lived experience of heart, body and mind with presence in the moment and therefore create a space where there is belonging, in turn create well being?

Drawing is arguably the most ancient form of visual art – whether on the body or on stone. Some 73,000 years ago, a human hand took an ochre crayon and carved a cross-hatch design on a silcrete stone flake. The medium of drawing is engrained in us all. It’s our first means of expression and creativity. As a child, before you can even talk, or walk or read, you can draw. So it’s often our first way of expressing ourselves.

Picking up a pencil or charcoal and mindfully making marks connects us to our haptic skills, or sense of touch, and offers a respite or rest from the relentless digital drain, which is important for mental health. The mind/body interrelation, a phenomenological perspective grounded in the philosophy of Husserl, Heidegger and Mereau-Ponty, restores the mind/body split of Descartes, whose privileging of maths and science as the only verifiable processes denied   bodily knowledge its significance in the world. This embodied knowledge of mark making and making in general is disregarded by government policy-makers. A divorce between reflective, active and Mental, Physical is detrimental to society. Tools and equipment are prosthetic extensions of the body that carry time, memory and thought of the maker, wholly different from the autonomous production of machines.(Margetts 2011)

If Social Justice is equity in access to resources, participation, food, shelter and education,  Martha Nusbaum adds the right to think and feel as a human right in her Capabilities approach. I would add a spiritual dimension to this. She advocates this through the right to creativity through working with our hands.

The impact of arts education on other non-arts skills and on innovation in the labour market should not be the primary justification for arts education in today’s curricula. The arts have been in existence since the earliest humans, are parts of all cultures, and are a major domain of human experience, just like science, technology, mathematics, and humanities. The arts are important in their own rights for education. The Arts should be an arena without right and wrong answers, they free students to explore and experiment. They are also a place to introspect and find personal meaning. Reclaiming the drawing space is reclaiming arts education.