Old Photos and Going Back to Dartington

About the image:
Dartington Train Station 1976. Black and white 35mm film.

Dartington College of Arts was one of the most radical arts institutions in Europe. Founded in 1961 as part of the wider Dartington Hall experiment, it grew out of a philosophy that fused modernism, rural regeneration, and progressive education. The college became internationally known for its experimental approach to performance, its rejection of traditional hierarchies, and its insistence that art should be a lived, critical practice rather than a product.

By the 1970s and 80s, Dartington had become a magnet for avant‑garde theatre-makers, composers, choreographers, sound artists, and writers. Courses such as Performance Writing, Visual Performance, and Music were deliberately porous — disciplines bled into each other, and students were encouraged to treat the entire estate as a laboratory. Many staff were practising artists with international reputations, and visiting lecturers often came from the experimental fringes of theatre, sound, and performance art.

The college’s degrees were validated by the University of Plymouth, but its ethos remained defiantly independent until its closure. In 2008, Dartington College of Arts was absorbed into University College Falmouth, ending nearly five decades of radical arts education on the Dartington estate.

White stripes through photographs are Art – The Omen.
Trains and the French woman’s name I forgot. Another lost / rediscovered negative I found that isn’t perfect. Taken in 1977 on Dartington railway station. This reminds me of the movie The Omen — each victim’s photograph had a white line through them.

Soundart Radio (FM) Dartington College, Nr Totnes on 8th August 2008.

Recorded on a portable cassette machine inside the studios of Soundart Radio, this session captures the room exactly as it was — untreated, immediate, and alive with the small noises of a working community station. The performance went out live on FM on 8 August 2008, its lo‑fi signal and on‑air imperfections becoming part of the piece itself.

from Hopeless 2007 - 2026, track released August 8, 2008

Soundart Radio 102.5 FM, founded in 2006 on the Dartington Estate, grew directly out of the college’s experimental culture. It is one of the UK’s few licensed community arts radio stations, broadcasting from the grounds of Dartington Hall. The station embraces the same spirit of improvisation, risk‑taking, and sonic curiosity that defined the college.

Soundart Radio treats radio as an artistic medium rather than a commercial one. Its output ranges from spoken word, experimental sound pieces, and live improvisation to local voices, field recordings, and long‑form ambient broadcasts. Many programmes are created by artists, musicians, and community members who treat the station as an open studio.

The station continues to operate today, long after the college’s departure, acting as a living remnant of Dartington’s creative legacy — a place where the boundaries between art, sound, and everyday life remain deliberately blurred.