Intervention
Since 2022, in addition to my role as a Technician at the London College of Fashion (LCF), I have been delivering a 4-day course called Adobe Professional Certified (ACP) Photoshop and InDesign to groups of approximately 15 students.
Normally, each session starts at 10:00 in the morning and finishes at 16:30, including a one-hour lunch break and two 15-minute tea breaks. By simultaneously mirroring on a screen what I am doing on my laptop, I show students how to use Adobe Photoshop and/or InDesign, underpinned by theoretical didactic material via a separate presentation.
Besides, I also deliver different workshops as HPL of a length of 2 hours on how to create short movies, posters and GIFs to FBS students in groups of 10 students.
Throughout Unit 2: Inclusive Practice, I have become more aware of new challenges represented by how to integrate disability, learning differences, faith and race into my teaching practices.
Informed by new theories of positionality and intersectionality, I have been spurred to look at my teaching structure through a different lens.
According to Dr. Tara Million (2024), an Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Lethbridge ‘positionality’ is about reflecting on yourself, who you are and how it influences the approach to certain topics.
My positionality is informed by my experience as an Italian, Christian, male and heterosexual. Is that all? Well, I have been living in the UK for more than 10 years, and I have been an international student among other students from all around the World since 2009. I am passionate about sport, art, photography, adventures, and this surely reflects my positionality more than anything else.
According to Mareike Riedel and Vanessa Rau (2025): “intersectionality allows scholars to critically centre the power relations at play as well as the resulting forms of oppression, marginalisation and discrimination against the backdrop of White and Christian supremacy”.
As mentioned by an article written by Vikki Boliver from Durham University (2022): “the HE curriculum dominated by White European standards canons of scientific and scholarly knowledge, plays a significant role in BAME students’ engagement, belonging and marginalisation. In many cases, ethnic minority students are engaging with a curriculum that does not reflect their socialisation, worldview, history or lived experience”.
To quote Veronica Bamber and Anna Jones (2015): “With a move to mass higher education, the demographics of the student population have changed. There are now many more students. Diversity encompasses language, religion, disability, gender, race, and previous experience”
With the move from a little brunch of FBS based in High Holborn to the new LCF home based in East Bank Stratford, I have been challenged and incentivised by the multitude and diversity of students I am surrounded by.
This melting pot is also confirmed by the last data report released by UAL in June 2025 which shows that at LCF there are 5599 students whom 35% are represented by B.A.M.E. students. The 59% have declared no religion or a belief, followed by 16% of Christians, 4% are Hindu, 4% are Muslim, 4% are Buddhist and so on and so forth. The data on sexual orientation relates to all students (Home and Overseas) reveals that 20% of all LCF students identified as LGBQ+ in 2024/25. Finally, data on disability has disclosed that 16% of our students at LCF are disabled.
Illuminated by the surrounding environment, the commencement of my PgCert and in particular by the IP unit I have started integrating into my teaching practices new exemplars that embrace the essence of other cultures, religions, sexual orientation and abilities. Hence, curiosity has been the quintessence of this academic chapter. In order to educate, I must educate myself first, find more, search and research if I want to detach myself from my anchor point.
As the Brazilian pedagogist Paulo Freire (1998, p. 81) reminds us: “the teacher must be clear and content with the notion that the cornerstone of the whole process is human curiosity. Curiosity is what makes questions, know act, ask again, recognise”
For example, helped by the choice of my students who, through a Padlet page, have shared artefacts of predominant artists from their nations and continents, I have embedded into my presentation paintings of the Indian female artist Arpita Singh and the Mexican disabled artist Frida Kahlo. This democratic and sustainable choice has spurred me to delve more into cultures far from the white, Eurocentric vision I have been affected by.
As an international staff member surrounded by international students, I make sure that I build a solid framework which clarifies the aims, objectives and expectations of my teaching sessions, accompanied by examples, exercises, tasks and models of successful practices.
On one of my blog posts about faith, my PgCert peer and colleague from LCF, Emilia Netto (2025) wrote: “When living in a society that is ‘structured in a race, gender, class discriminatory way, how does someone start to bring about change? Is there any way of bringing change beyond the way we act, with kindness, understanding and respect”.
I am very passionate about my job, which couldn’t exist without students. “There is no teaching without learning. One requires the other” (Freire, 1998, p.31). In so doing, I care about students and what they can bring into this World. I cannot be an educator if I cannot develop an attitude of caring and loving toward the student. To quote Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens (2013) my priority is to create “an environment in which everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves and participating fully, without fear of attack, ridicule, or denial of experience”.
In addition, to enhance my students’ didactical experience, I make sure that they learn by interacting with joy and pleasure. As the disabled artist Christine Ann Kim (2025) asserts: “In order to let an audience insert itself, making things humorous has often proven to be good tools, if a work can provoke a laughter, the bar is significantly lowered.”
I remember that my Course Leader, Victor Guillen (2025,) after a peer observation, advised me “to tap a bit more into peer-to-peer interaction and learning to help you manage conceptual, skills and knowledge differences within the group”.
In virtue of this, I have devised a couple of small interventions which have mutated the structure and narrative of the ACP course. With the main idea of reducing the screen exhaustion caused by the nature of this course (Willcock and Mahon 2023) and motivate students to assimilate key concepts, thus I have designed a game called ‘Battlecandy’ to explain the logic behind the Cartesian Plane and in addition I invite and facilitate students, with all the tools needed (e.g. scissors, glue sticks, old magazines) to design physical collages in groups of 3 to explain concepts like layers, shapes, fonts, resolution, etc.
Battlecandy is a reinvented version of Battleship, but the players instead of playing with warships, which I don’t think would be suitable during these uncanny times, they play with edible, colourful and fruity candies. Furthermore, the design of Battlecandy only requires printing some A4 pages and the purchase of packs of candies called Starburst, whilst the Collage task requires the collection of old magazines, scissors, glue stick and a lot of imagination. In both cases, after a trial with my Line Manager Matti Juutilainen, I have been given the green light to insert these 2 new tasks in my ACP courses.
As Dr Kirsten Hardie (2015) observes, “I use objects to develop students’ skills and confidence in research”. Many other authors have navigated the enhancing possibilities that object-based learning can deliver to pedagogy (Boys, 2010).
As Chatterjee (2010) observes: ”Objects can be employed to facilitate the acquisition of communication, teamwork and for inspiration”.
With this in mind, I had to intersect my positionality as an extrovert, colourful and chaotic teacher with that of my students and let them collaborate, intertwine and entangle their positionalities. I couldn’t be a teacher without being and exposing who I really am. Notwithstanding, I have to confess that “in a very diverse classroom, a teacher can no longer assume that something will work or be understood and accepted” (Bamber & Jones 2015).
The ACP courses have mainly been designed to interact with a screen and a digital workspace, but to paraphrase our colleagues from CSM Judy Willcocks and Kieran Mahon (2023), the sole use of technology cannot improve the pedagogical experience of our students.
Freire reminds us that:
The practice of right thinking is fundamental in dealing with new challenges posed by technology today, as is the freedom to create. An education where freedom to create is viable necessarily must encourage overcoming any fear of responsible adventure; it must go beyond a mediocre taste for repetition for repetition’s sake (Freire, 2004, p. 84).
I will implement this intervention to facilitate the co-creation, interaction and participation of my students. Is this intervention going to make my teaching methods more engaging? Is it going to facilitate my students throughout the learning process? Or on the contrary, is it going to create more confusion? Are students going to perceive it as something funny and entertaining or as trivial and boring?
The way students will evaluate me is going to affect my modus operandi. Surely, I am driven by the curiosity of how students will collaboratively play and explore through different aesthetic and linguistic methodologies.
My peer Mikolai Berg (2025) in one of his comments reminds me: “By designing sessions that include students’ own lived experiences and identities, you not only support meaningful knowledge exchange but also create space for connection and shared understanding”.
Stimulated by the words of Mikolai and moving forward, to make my intervention more inclusive, I will add written instructions in English and other idioms which explain how to play Battlecandy and how to create a physical collage and then scan, import and edit the digital version in Photoshop.
References
Arday J, Branchu C, Boliver V. What Do We Know About Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Participation in UK Higher Education? Social Policy and Society. 2022; 21(1):12-25. doi:10.1017/S1474746421000579.
Arts.ac.uk. (2025). Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) report update. [online] Available at: https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/News/264626/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-edi-report-update [Accessed 12 Jul. 2025]
Arts.ac.uk. (2024). From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces by Arao and Clemens | PgCert 2024. [online] Available at: https://syahrizalshafie.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2024/03/17/from-safe- spaces-to-brave-spaces-by-arao-and-clemens/.
Bamber, V & Jones, A 2015, Challenging students: enabling inclusive learning. in H Fry, S Ketteridge & S Marshall (eds), A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Enhancing Academic Practice. 4th edn, Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 152-168. <https://www.routledge.com/A-Handbook-for-Teaching-and-Learning-in-Higher-Education-Enhancing-academic/Fry-Ketteridge-Marshall-Fry-Ketteridge-Marshall/p/book/9780415709965>
Berg, M. (2025). Blog comments. [online] Available at: https://inclusivepractices.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/06/21/unit-2-inclusive-practices-race/ [Accessed 2 Jul. 2025]
Boys, J 2010, Creative Differences: deconstructing the conceptual learning spaces of Higher Education and museums. in B Cook, R Reynolds & C Speight (eds), Museums and Design Education: looking to learn, learning to see. Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 43-60.
Chatterjee, H. (2010) Object-based learning in higher education: The pedagogical power of museums. University and Museums and Collections Journal, 3, 179-8. [online] Available from: http://edoc.huberlin.de/umacj/2010/chatterjee-179/PDF/chatterjee.pdf [Accessed 11 July 2025].
Freire, P. (2004). Pedagogy of Indignation. Routledge.
Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Guillen, V. (2025). Unit 1: Peer Observation. LCF, London.
Hardie, K. (2015). Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object- based learning and teaching. [online] Available at: https://s3.eu-west- 2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document- manager/documents/hea/private/kirsten_hardie_final_1568037367.pdf.
Netto, E. (2025). Blog comment. [online] Available at: https://inclusivepractices.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/05/24/post-2/ [Accessed 5 Jul. 2025]..
Wellcome Collection. (2025). 1880 THAT: Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader. [online] Available at: https://wellcomecollection.org/press-release-1880-that-exhibition.
Willcocks, J. and Mahon, K. (2023). The potential of online object-based learning activities to support the teaching of intersectional environmentalism in art and design higher education. Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, 22(2), pp.187–207. doi:https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00074_1.
List of images
- Fig. 1 – UAL, 2025. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) report update. London, UK.
- Fig. 2 – Renga, G. 2025. Welcome in all languages. London, UK.
- Fig. 3 – Renga, G. 2024. Vitruvian Man. London, UK.
- Fig. 4 – Renga, G. 2024. InDesign Process Screenshot. London, UK.
- Fig. 5 – The Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi, Ministry of Culture, Shri K.K. Chakravarty conferring the fellowship on eminent artist Arpita Singh, at a function, in New Delhi on October 10, 2014. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpita_Singh [Accessed 26 May 2025].
- Fig. 6 – Renga, G. 2025, Arpita Singh Exhibition @ Serpentine Gallery. London, UK.
- Fig. 7 – Anderson, E. 2019. Frida Kahlo Painted Using Assistive Technology (and So Can You). [online] AT3 Center. Available at: https://at3center.net/2019/07/08/frida-kahlo-painted-using-assistive-technology-and-so-can-you/. [Accessed 26 May 2025].
- Fig. 8 – Fay, N. 2021. Quem foi Frida Kahlo? [online] Pinterest. Available at: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/2322237301016281/ [Accessed 26 May 2025].
- Fig. 9 – Renga, G. 2025. (X, Y ) axes. London, UK.
- Fig. 10 – Renga, G. 2025. I Photoshop, therefore I am. London, UK.
- Fig. 11 – Renga, G. 2025. Battleship. London, UK.
- Fig. 12 – Renga, G. 2025. Battlecandy. London, UK.
- Fig. 13 – Sturbust Candies.
- Fig. 14 – Renga, G. 2025. Collage intervention trial. London, UK.
- Fig. 15 – Renga, G. 2025. Collage intervention trial. London, UK.
Acronyms
| Acronyms | Meaning |
| ACP | Adobe Certified Professional |
| B.A.M.E. | Black, Asian and minority ethnic |
| CSM | Central Saint Martins |
| FBS | Fashion Business School |
| GIF | Graphic Interchange Format |
| HPL | Hourly Paid Lecturer |
| IP | Inclusive Practices |
| LCF | London College of Fashion |
| UAL | University of the Arts London |
Words count
1640
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