Suzanna
"I made unexpected levels of progress, and Suzanna gave me confidence in my work now and for the future."
Undergraduate Fine Art
English
Fine Art
Textiles
Undergraduate Level
University Applications
Academic History
Royal College of Art: MA Textiles, with Research Distinction
Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton): BA Textiles, First Class Honours
Carmarthen School of Art: Foundation Diploma in Art and Design: Distinction
About Me
In terms of pedagogical approach, since beginning teaching, I have developed and applied an interest in student-centred pedagogy. This encompasses my interest in socio-constructivist and experiential approaches; the way we learn through our contextual environments and relationships; encouraging the use of relevant enquiry, discovery, and experimentation followed by task-based learning. Sessions focus on students being active participants, encompassing contextual and technical instruction followed by blended learning, guided student research, self-directed study, and continual tutor feedback. Some aims of my approach to teaching include:
– Cultivating experiential learning with practical application of new skills
– Instilling student understanding of the way in which new methodologies and research material could be applied
– Providing a springboard for continued independent learning
– Forming a steady, tangible progression to project work, inclusive of continual feedback, helping to maintain motivation and enthusiasm through a continual sense of progress.
Since my first teaching role, I have worked with student profiles which encompass hugely diverse needs. Cohorts have included age ranges of 18-60 and at times as much as 80% of the cohort with ISP/SEN/SpLD and/or mental health difficulties. This means that a flexible, student-centred approach is critical as each learner presents a completely unique approach to their study. There is always a significant focus on student wellbeing and pastoral care alongside academic and creative development.
In my experience, arts education seems to inherently differ from some educational pathways in that students are often inherently studying themselves as a part of what and how they create. This requires high levels of sensitivity, empathy and care in supervision and portfolio review, which is something I find incredibly rewarding. My relationships with my students are of completely vital importance to me. I work to build individual relationships which create safe and brave space for complete freedom of expression, grappling with ideas, development and ethics, alongside personal support, symbiotic to academic and creative development. These relationships often extend past the end of the student’s course of study, and I am currently developing a graduate support programme in order to give further structure to recent graduates who I continue to work with on a voluntary mentoring basis. My experience of active listening skills, pastoral care skills and student support signposting is inherent to my work as a tutor, and a personal and professional interest in individual and collective care contributes to my practice, research and teaching.
Recent tuition
Fine Art + Textiles BA Delivery
Institution: The Art Academy, Faculty of Art, Design and Music (KMD) – University of Bergen, Norway. Support provided: Admissions Juror and Portfolio Review. Duration of Support: 1 Week Intensive within jury teams for 400 candidates. Progression Institutions: KhiO – Oslo; Royal Academy of Arts – Copenhagen; HDK – Gothenburg; Academy of Fine Arts – Helsinki; KMD – University of Bergen.
As an Artistic Research Fellow at The Art Academy KMD Bergen, I undertook a fellowship semester in 2024 where I had admissions jury and portfolio review responsibilities. I was responsible for admission ‘exhibition intensives’ running across a week-long intensive, where I supported students to display portfolios, works in progress, and final works, for their BA Fine Art Programme interviews. Additionally to small group portfolio and exhibition review, I conducted 1-1 portfolio reviews and interviews with up to 50 students, where I scored candidates against admissions criteria, gave personalised portfolio feedback and recommended them for intake to the programme at KMD or for application and review at one of the connected central European schools of art. This role included responsibility to analyse and apply specialist comprehensive admissions criteria to each candidate based on appropriate progression programmes. In this role, I also had the responsibility to co-present candidate portfolios to an additional 7 admission juries of fellow academics, with rationale and recommendation for admission, and/or personalised student facing feedback for portfolio development. Overall this experience provided comprehensive and in-depth understanding of admissions processes to Fine Art undergraduate programmes. This experience is continually applicable in my ongoing work in artistic portfolio review for BA undergraduate entry.
Fine Art and Textiles
Support Provided: Mentoring and Portfolio Tuition. Duration of Support: 1 x 1-1 Session. Progression Institution: Royal College of Art.
I tutored this student at Winchester School of Art, a part of Russell group university (The University of Southampton) with his application to the Royal College of Art, which continues to hold its status as the number one art school worldwide. As an MA graduate of RCA, I was able to support him both personally and creatively. The student was feeling significant pressure in the development of his portfolio alongside his current studies, and we worked on selecting his strongest works in progress and directed him in a considered approach to further development. This built strategically towards a cohesive portfolio which was successfully accepted to the RCA.
Fine Art/Set and Costume Design
Support Provided: Tuition and Mentoring. Duration of Support: 3 x 1-1 sessions. Progression Institution: Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
I tutored this student at Cardiff School of Art and Design with her application to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. This student needed specific support with her personal statement alongside portfolio development, and we worked on vocabulary building which articulated her ‘practice location’ – where her practice sits naturally in the wider context of visual and performance arts. This built her understanding of her own work and therefore her ability to communicate this to others within application and interview contexts. She was successfully accepted onto the programme at the RWC.
Textiles
Support Provided: 1-1 and Group Tuition and Professional Practice Advisor. Duration of Support: 3+ months. Progression Institution: London College for Design and Fashion in Hanoi (LCD).
I taught this student at Falmouth as they shaped a specialist research project on textiles in intercultural communities. Using my own specialist experience working with NGO ‘Awamaki’ in Peru on the production of fair trade textiles, I provided essential ethical and sustainable practice advice to this student. Utilising the project they had developed within our tuition, they went on to be an invited speaker at the symposium ‘Listening for the Echoes: heritage knowledges to shape fashion and design futures’ held at University of the Arts London as well as continuing leadership in academic delivery at LCD Hanoi.
Fine Art
Support Provided: 1-1 Weekly Tuition and Supervision. Duration of Support: 3-6 months. Progression Institution: Trinity College of Dublin.
I supervised this student’s undergraduate thesis in artistic responses to social and political unrest in Latin America. Working with socially engaged auto-ethnographic methodologies, the student gained a first for her thesis and went on to apply to Trinity College of Dublin, where, through the guidance and advice received during our tuition, she was able to build a methodical application which was accepted by Trinity College onto the Critical Perspectives to Education programme.
Interior Architecture + Design
Support Provided: 1-1 Weekly Tuition and Supervision. Duration of Support: 3-6 months. Progression Institution: Postgraduate International Graduate Scheme (Canada).
I supervised this student’s BA dissertation entitled ‘Constructing Devotion: The Gothic Revival’s Modifications to Ecclesiastical Architecture and the Influence of the Architect over Symbolism and Community Faith’. The student was navigating a specific learning difficulty (SpLD) which impacted their ability to follow standard academic timelines, processes and working styles. Through adapted supervision, personalised support, and adapted process management, I supported the student in building trust in their own project management approach, alongside academic development, and future goal setting through my own training in SpLD and neurodivergence. This worked in tandem alongside my own lived experience of three intersecting learning differences. Their final submission achieved 85%, one of the highest first class dissertations in their year group, and they were subsequently accepted onto an international graduate project scheme.
Fine Art
Support Provided: 1-1 Weekly Tuition and Supervision. Duration of Support: 3-6 months. Progression Institution: Multiple.
Within my role as associate lecturer in Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art and Design, I had responsibility for practice-led portfolio development for a group of 8 students. This role had responsibility for bi-weekly 1-1 tutorials to assess works in progress, ideas in development, plans for final outcomes, and across the project, cohesive portfolio development for Level 6 (Final Year) Undergraduate Assessment.
Textiles
Support Provided: 1-1 Weekly Tuition and Supervision. Duration of Support: 3-6 months. Progression Institution: Multiple.
Within my role as associate lecturer in Textiles at Cardiff School of Art and Design, I had co-delivery responsibility for Textiles Design portfolio development. This role had responsibility for weekly 1-1 tutorials to assess works in progress, ideas in development, plans for final outcomes, and across the cohesive, design-led portfolio development for Level 6 (Final Year) Undergraduate Assessment.
English
As a creative educator, I am passionate about creative writing and the development of writing, reading and creative expression in students of all ages.
I work with the tools of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to help students in all subjects develop their communication, expression and interest in writing and reading practices. I studied EAP within my own MA study and have applied this in my teaching to a range of workshops in the development of written work for young people across primary and secondary age groups. This has included comprehension, analysis and understanding of text at several universities. I have also taught externally for charities such as the Refugee Council and Valleys Kids in South Wales.
I have a strong interest in poetry, studying the work of written expression by Julia Cameron, and my poetry writing practice has developed through engagement with the OpenYale course ‘Modern Poetry’.
Hobbies
I am an interdisciplinary artist and writer and am engaged with painting, textile making, photography, creative writing, and documentary practices within my work. These interests also fill my free time as things in life which I love. Recently I have been working on a watercolour project which documents textiles depicted in paintings for my own enjoyment, and additionally, I have a deep interest in environmental sustainability and the outdoors. I have recently joined the Wildlife Trust’s volunteering programme to connect more with London’s nature reserves and would love to grow plants or flowers, especially cut flowers or natural dye plants like madder or woad. I enjoy this because I find nature restoring, rebalancing and creatively inspiring. I have also volunteered for the Refugee Council in their refugee women’s support groups where I have facilitated a range of creative workshops, and have also recently signed up to be a young person’s voluntary mentor with Arts Emergency. These interests are important to me as part of my approach for social equity. Finally, I have a love for music and writing, and have recently attended a poetry workshop at the Southbank Centre, and am signed up to a ‘Sunday Session’ with the London choral project ‘Real Voices’. Whenever I can, I like to write ‘morning pages’, a practice championed by writer Julia Cameron as a creative reflective writing process, and I recommend this enthusiastically to many of my students.
Testimonials
“Amongst an uncertain year, Suzanna was the best tutor working with my class this year. I couldn’t have progressed my journey in education without Suzanna’s tuition and support, my experience with her as my tutor has made me refocus my future motivations on the project work she supported me with, as she made it such a fulfilling process. Her feedback was transformative, and it’s thanks to her that I was able to get through the module amongst significant personal challenges and whilst navigating undiagnosed learning differences. She made me want my work to be the best it can be, I honestly can’t thank her enough, and working with her continually lifted a very heavy weight of academic pressure. Thank you again for everything!”
Interior Architecture + Design, BA, Cardiff School of Art and Design
“Suzanna was so generous with her time and support, and took care over my wellbeing as a whole, not only in terms of academic progression, but throughout navigating significant learning differences. She took a holistic approach which helped me to develop my work to its fullest. I made unexpected levels of progress, and Suzanna gave me confidence in my work now and for the future. She helped me to set achievable goals, and supported me in working towards them. She provided ongoing support and reassurance. Suzanna is the most patient tutor I have ever met.”
This testimonial is from a student who was predicted to fail their undergraduate dissertation, and after 1-1 tuition, went on to achieve a 2:1. Fine Art, BA, Cardiff School of Art and Design
“I met Suzanna in my capacity as a Lecturer and Module Leader. Suzanna applied to join my team at Falmouth University and as one of the successful candidates out of 54 international high profile applicants she began working with me in January 2024. Since the beginning, Suzanna has been essential to providing a positive learning environment and ensuring that all students felt welcome despite their different circumstances. With her extremely supportive and kind character, she has supported our students in their individual learning journey and was very engaged in making sure that she addressed each student’s challenges and struggles. Her pro-active attitude and willingness to share resources and best practice examples has elevated the overall teaching that we were able to offer as a team. Suzanna has been a great team player and students as well as colleagues feedback on her engagement and constructive work ethic was positive at all times. Suzanna’s tuition has enriched the module’s teaching quality on a different level which became visible across multiple submissions and final outcomes that benefitted from her professional background, research experience and interest in care. Throughout the module, Suzanna has demonstrated a wealth of knowledge that underpinned her ability to disseminate subject relevant research with our students. She has been a great asset to our team, and I can only recommend her warmly.”
Sustainable Textiles, MA, Falmouth University
