Liam Belton recalls the protests in the National College of Art between 1967 and 1971 that led to the formation of an autonomous board to oversee the running of the college. These developments, along with other major events of the period, are encapsulated in his artwork Homage to Paint and Protest
In the late 1960s, rumblings of dissent in the National College of Art (NCA) in Dublin erupted into a full-scale revolt. The curricula in the Schools of Painting, Sculpture and Design were hopelessly out of date compared to equivalent colleges elsewhere in Europe. There was no library and no photography department and equipment in the design school and printing department was either antiquated or non-existent. At the end of the five-year course, students were awarded a diploma, which was not recognised abroad. Frustrated with this state of affairs, students began a campaign for the diploma to be abolished, a degree course put in its place, college infrastructure modernised and the structure of governance reformed.
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