CSM exhibition course is not the only one in the UK

Hannah Booth’s News Analysis regarding Central St Martins College of Art and Design’s proposed exhibition design course (DW 24 January) may have misled your readers. This is because it infers that there is no existing specialist programme of study within the discipline.

The museum and exhibition design studies degree course in Hull at the University of Lincoln, has been training exhibition designers since 1947. It has also provided a related exhibition design masters degree programme of study since 1997.

Unique in Europe, the course in Humberside also has an enviable reputation within British design education for its unusually high success rate of graduate employment in the industry.

By its very nature, exhibition design is the ultimate in multidisciplinary design, being the one discipline that includes all of the others.

Indeed, in answer to the question in the article, does exhibition design need specialist teaching? – yes, it does. It always has needed it and subsequently, has always received it in Hull.

Patrick Argent

Former student of the University of Lincoln

patargent@yahoo.com

Richard McConnell

Course leader

BA Hons museum and exhibition design studies

University of Lincoln

rmcconnell@humber.ac.uk