School of the Arts

About us

Loughborough University's School of the Arts houses The Animation Academy, a centre for animation research, scholarship, practice and exhibition, embracing tradition and progress, education and industry, art and commerce; and dedicated to excellence at a national and international level in all its activities.

The Animation Academy believes that

Animation occupies a cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary space between graphic design, art-making and visual practices in production and exhibition contexts.

Animation is a versatile cross-platform medium, in feature films and TV sit-coms; cartoons and avant garde shorts; web-sites, ads and on mobile phones. This ironically, heightens its presence while diluting its profile.

Animation has been misunderstood as a marginalised form and mainly as a children's entertainment, when in reality, it is a radical and progressive art-form and practical application.

Animation is the only art to remain consistently and insistently experimental as it grows in mass popularity and acceptance.

Animation should be addressed through properly integrated methods of theory and practice, and include historical, critical and practical methodologies.

• The Animation Workshops
  Maintaining the craft of animation in a changing technological and cultural climate. Winner of an Innovation Fellowship 2006.

• Research and Publication
  Recovering the history, culture and significance of animation through critical analysis and theoretical enquiry. Linking to the School's established excellence in 'drawing' research present on the TRACEY website.
  First publications : Fundamentals of Animation (AVA 2006); Halas & Batchelor Cartoons : An Animated History (South Bank Books 2006)

• Cross-Disciplinary Access and Application
  Testing the role, function and definition of animation in a range of research contexts and production environments. For example design and technology; performance art; engineering and sport.

• Production and Exhibition
  Revealing the process and outcomes of animation as an entertainment, an educator, an industrial model, and an art, using the on campus gallery, the Fairburn Building, and touring venues.
  First production : Animation Nation (BBC Productions); 'Object React' (onedotzero; ICA; V&A Museum)

• The Animation Archive
  Preserving animation materials and artwork from 'Animation People', 'Silver Fox', Halas & Batchelor and the BBC for future generations of researchers and animation historians.
  Productions include The First Snows of Winter, The Forgotten Toys and William's Wish Wellingtons.

• Festival and Institutional Collaboration
  Participating in the annual Animex International Animation Festival with our partners, the University of Teesside, engaging with the work of the world's major animation companies and artists. Working as part of The British Cartoon Forum, the subject specialist network in the field. Invested in the Society for Animation Studies worldwide.

• The UK Animation Forum
  Creating a focus for the UK Animation industry and its educational providers, and currently working with colleagues across the country in collaborative curricula and research dialogues.

• Animated Conversations
  Providing a critical forum for debates defining and progressing the field of animation through panels, seminars, and open lectures.

• Postgraduate courses and Research opportunities
• Project development with the Art and Technologies Partnership
• Commercial and Institutional research initiatives
• Externally funded educational projects based on Animation Workshops