Spotlight on... Mary Evans

What is your role and what does it involve? 

My role as Director of the Slade School of Art is very new and will encompass the smooth and positive steering of the teaching and learning at Slade in all its functions and processes. Personally speaking, I want to encourage a collegiate, nurturing, and happy teaching and learning community of practice for both staff and students. The Slade has a long and illustrious history, and I am honoured to have been appointed to continue this legacy whilst playing my part to progress and help to steer it into a more diverse and equitable environment. For the first time in my twenty-year teaching career, this role does not involve teaching regularly. This will be a huge shift for me as teaching has been my life’s blood for years! I will, however, find a way of teaching! 

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role? 

I started at UCL on 4th October. Previously I was the BA Fine Art Course Leader at Chelsea College of Arts UAL for five years. Before Chelsea, I taught on the BA Fine Art course at CSM for fourteen years. So, moving from UAL to UCL is a big change for me but I think student artists are student artists wherever they study, and I interact, teach, and learn from them in equal measure. 

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of? 

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, I initiated an online BLM discussion forum for students and staff at Chelsea. It was conceived during lockdown as a safe space for discussion and community where students joined with cameras off, in their pyjamas, to discuss various current and relevant issues pertaining to social justice. I hope to do something similar at the Slade if it’s something students would like to be involved in. 

Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of your to-do list 

I’m working on a Windrush Portraits project with the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton. 2023 is the 75th anniversary of the docking of the Empire Windrush in Tilbury in 1948. I went to Jamaica this summer to do some R&D for the project and met deportees and people who are supporting them. The project is an Arts Council-funded Co-Creating Public Space Project in which the work will be displayed on prominent windows in Southampton city centre during Black History Month and beyond. 

What is your favourite album, film and novel? 

My favourite album is Michael Jackson’s 1979 album Off the Wall. It reminds me of being 16 in Nigeria and dancing with my sisters when we were meant to be doing our homework! 

My favourite film is The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola. I’ve seen it lots of times but am overdue another viewing. I love it for its universal themes of love, betrayal, family, and loss. 

My favourite novel is Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I’ve read all her books and appreciate her lyrical prose and complex storytelling. 

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)? 

More of a tongue twister than a joke: 

Q: What annoys an oyster? 

A: A noisy noise annoys an oyster! 

Who would be your dream dinner guests? 

This is so hard! James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, two African American writers I read as part of a parallel decolonised education I had to give myself alongside my Eurocentric A-level English studies; Ovonramwen, the last King of the Benin Kingdom who was deposed by the British after the 1895 Berlin Conference during which it was decided how Europe would carve up Africa. My family is from Benin City in Nigeria, and I wonder how it must have felt to be dethroned and discarded from a century’s long dynasty by a European invader; Sam Cooke, just because I love his music; WEB Du Bois for his scholarship on the 19th Century Black American experience and the fact that we share a birth date almost 100 years apart. The writer, bell hooks, for her scholarship on education and inclusive and progressive pedagogy, Kimberle Crenshaw for her work on the tenets of critical race theory, artist Sonia Boyce because she’s a mate and a legend! Finally, my mum; so that she could meet the people above. Although she has always supported my endeavours, I don’t think she fully understands the world I inhabit.  

What advice would you give your younger self? 

Trust that things will turn out ok. My MA tutor at Goldsmiths told me to persevere and follow up on opportunities, say ‘yes’ and I would prevail eventually. I took his advice but still got jittery from time to time and worried that things would go belly up! I give the same advice to my students now and still believe in it. 

What would it surprise people to know about you? 

I’ve never had a cup of coffee! I had a tiny sip of coffee when I was 17 to see what all the fuss was about but haven’t indulged since. I can’t stand coffee cake or tiramisu, etc. 

What is your favourite place?   

Right now, my favourite place is my studio. I don’t get there as often as I’d like to. It’s my home from home and even if I don’t have something to work towards, I like to be able to go there just to decompress, play, swing in my hammock, potter and contemplate my navel! Somehow, I have always managed to maintain a studio since graduating from my BA in Painting in 1982. 

Image: Mary Evans by Christa Holka