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Davenport, Emma (2026) The write place: to what extent does a studio model support safe places to write across the university? In: Midlands Conference In Critical Thought, 22 May 2026, University of Warwick. (Submitted)
5. Studio-ing as Critical, Creative and Interdisciplinary Pedagogy Current academic writing support for art and design students in post-92 universities in the UK tends to emphasise a remedial approach where the problem lies with the student (Hardy, Murray Thow and Smith, 2020). Faced with the assumption that they are illiterate, these students resort to unsustainable writing practices such as binge writing and avoidance to cope with writing assessments (Quynn and Steward, 2021). They also learn to conceive of writing capabilities as emergent through osmosis. As if, in Warner’s words, ‘ wearing a book on top of your head’ will allow its contents to ‘seep into your brain’ (2018: 27). Yet, writing is a creative practice that critically challenges students and staff alike. Its success lies as much in the process as it does in the artifact therefore, time, resources and motivation contribute to cultivating a writerly practice. In order to positively learn through doing, there needs to be acknowledgement of social, affective and professional aspects that contribute to the development of productive writerly selves.
Drawing upon the studio model found in art and design higher education, this workshop discusses, explores and reflects upon the ‘studio’ as a template for designing spaces to write both in a creative arts department and a university as a whole. A ‘studio’, with its emphasis on place and collective activity, provides a dynamic space for applied and experiential learning to take place, paradoxically, without text or symbols (Jones, Brown, Boling, Corazzo, Gray and Lotz, 2025). To write well is to take risks and fail but in order to do this, certain conditions ned to be in place which a ‘studio’ can provide that is, arguably unlike any other learning space. The workshop will encourage participants to experience a writing ‘studio’, based on a design piloted and evaluated over a five year period within one university before considering benefits/challenges within a range of different disciplinary and pedagogical contexts. For example, temporality is a key condition for both ‘studio-ing’ and ‘writing’ but are felt very differently by the student writer (Murray, 2015) To conclude, we consider how studio-ing might be used as an innovative approach to creating writing experiences for future inter-disciplinary universities.
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