About us
The Arts School is a key faculty of the Dartington Trust, a centre for learning, arts, ecology and social justice based on a 1,200 acre estate near Totnes. Students will join an incredible learning community of current students here and at Schumacher College, as well as our own staff, many of whom are practicing artists, writers and thinkers themselves, and our wider network of partner organisations and alumni.As a site of cross-disciplinary learning for almost a century, Dartington has long attracted innovative and ambitious artists and thinkers. The Arts School’s predecessor, Dartington College of Arts, was recognised nationally and internationally for its radical and inventive approaches to arts pedagogy, embracing practice-based and interdisciplinary research, and prioritising context as a core factor and ‘material’ in art-making processes.
Dartington Arts School draws on this rich international heritage and its extraordinary estate location to provide a dynamic and responsive context for contemporary study. Dartington is a distinctive learning community where students and tutors learn in dialogue with each other and with the place itself. We offer learning on a small, friendly scale with intensity and rigour. As a testbed for enacting new visions and models, Dartington has a uniquely values-driven vitality to offer to its learners.
Resources & Community
Dartington has a range of dance, theatre, music and art studios and a wealth of outdoor learning spaces including woods, farmland, the River Dart, the medieval deer park, food growing and landscaped gardens. Students have access to bookable studios and workshops. A specialist arts and ecology library is shared with Schumacher College students.
Dartington Arts School has a rich interdisciplinary learning community of staff and students working with a passion to be change-agents for a sustainable future. The Dartington Trust has a mission to act as a creative catalyst for more just and sustainable ways of living.
FURTHER READING: History of the College of Arts at Dartington >
