Templo and Plymouth College of Art launch campaign to put creative education on the political agenda

The last time It’s Nice That spoke to Templo, co-founder and creative director Pali Palavathanan had politics on his mind.

It was the week that 30 artists decided to take their art off the walls of the Design Museum in protest after it was alleged that the institution had held an on-site event for the arms trade during the midst of its Hope to Nope exhibition.

Politics was on the agenda again after Pali and his team unveiled the recent work Templo has done on behalf of the Plymouth College of Art (PCA). In March 2018, PCA outlined their five-to-ten year strategy in a ten point manifesto with a focus on social justice and creative learning.

The result is, What’s Your Proposition? a multi-avenued campaign which spreads from social media activation to on-campus wayfinding, via print and digital collateral. They describe it as a radical campaign intended to influence creative education policy at a governmental level.

“We have been working with Plymouth College of Art for three years in close collaboration with Andrew Brewerton (the principal) and the brand team,” Pali tells us. “We’ve built a lot of mutual trust over the years, which led to Andrew sharing the five to ten year strategy for the college with us and allowing us to work in an increasingly experimental way.”

Central to the project is an open source activism tool that Templo produced, and which allows students, alumni, and the general public alike to voice propositions. It also allows users to download the vector artwork in order to create their very own protest material, a radical move in an age of increasing corporate influence on the nation’s institutions of higher and further education.

As Pali puts it: “In an age where our trust in content and data is in question, open source tools are essential for transparency and inclusivity in any industry. For Plymouth College of Art this allows the college to really listen and respond to their audiences.”

Pali also suggests that the next generation of creatively-minded students are, “sceptical and in search of something meaningful,” and as such, Templo approaches to the project was with the intention of demonstrating how the PCA is, “sticking their heads above the parapet fighting for creative education because it has the power the change the world around us.”

Possibly because most of us could do a little more to think globally whilst thinking locally, Pali and the rest of the Templo team has made good use of the college’s current students to get the message of what a modern, educational proposition looks like, with a series of intriguing case studies giving an insight into the concept. It also features imagery provided by Plymouth College of Art BA (Hons) photography alum Taylor Harford.

Both Templo and PCA are encouraging people from all over the world to voice their propositions, with the ultimate aim of putting creative education back on the agenda in parliament. Who knows, maybe even Mrs May will find a spare five minutes to make herself heard.