John Burke revisits the Locked Room -- Was it really 'locked'?

John Burke joined St Martin's A Course in 1970 after completing his foundation at East Ham Technical College, where fellow student John Crossley also studied. Here he considers the ontology of finding himself in a 'locked' room.

Film still from Tom McPhillip's film A Lay in the Dife, a pint or two at the Angel, John Burke (on right)

Strictly speaking, it was locked only when we weren’t there. The outside of the door had a hasp and staple with a robust padlock and the key was held by the staff, who unlocked it at the start of each session and locked it again when we all left. On the inside there was a strong, simple sliding metal bolt you might find on a shed. Once we had all entered the room, the door was closed and the bolt slid shut by the member of staff on duty.

Sometimes a student wanted to leave the room during a session although this was allowed only for essential purposes. At the start of a project the room would contain only specific materials in precise quantities and set out for each student. No other materials could be brought into the room. If a student decided to use a particular tool, he or she would ask the staff member who would permit, or not, the use of that tool, which could be obtained from the technical staff in another part of the building. (This was one of the few occasions when we spoke, and the exchange was kept very short and concise: ‘May I get a pair of wire-cutters, please?’ – ‘Yes, you may get wire-cutters.’). The staff member would then slide back the bolt and open the door just enough for the student to leave and bolt it again immediately. On returning with the tool the student would knock on the door and be readmitted. We could use only one tool at a time.

The door was not self-closing: it had to be bolted and unbolted, locked and unlocked, manually. The action of the door and the act of securing it were controlled exclusively by the staff so a decision to leave the room entailed a mildly disruptive and slightly ritualistic procedure, especially if the staff member were some distance from the door when the request was made. Similarly, at the start and end of each session the staff member would unlock or unbolt and open the door, let us in or out of the room, and secure it behind us.

In fact the room was ‘locked’ only when it was unoccupied: it was the sliding bolt that kept the door shut during sessions. The bolt was on the inside, with us working on a given project. It was ‘our’ bolt and it kept everything else outside, although we may not all have seen it that way at the time.

Before applying to St Martin’s I had visited the school and the sculpture department during term time to find out more about the A Course. I had found my way to that door and knocked on it. After a moment someone came to the door and opened it a crack, saying nothing. When I asked if I could have a look inside he said ‘No’ and closed the door. Later, when I had my interview to join the course I took my jumbo portfolio containing carefully-mounted photographs of the things I had made on my foundation course and in my own time. Naively, I assumed that, somehow, I might continue some of these things at St Martin’s if I were offered a place.

Months later I reported back to the door of the infamous ‘locked room’ along with a dozen or so other successful applicants to be greeted formally by the A Course staff. This encounter has been described very accurately by Gareth Jones in other material but we were welcomed and told the ‘rules’ of the course before the padlock was ceremoniously unlocked, the door opened and we were asked to enter the studio. I had brought my portfolio case and asked if I could take it into the studio with me. ‘You can’t bring any materials into the studio’, I was told, so I had to leave it leaning against a wall somewhere nearby. It stayed there, gathering dust, for the whole of that first term while everything I thought I knew about making sculpture, encapsulated in that brown fibreboard folder, was challenged, threatened and finally, involuntarily broken.

The following months were surprisingly lonely and distressing without the certainty and dependability I had experienced in my earlier education. I still felt that I wanted to know where I was going so that I could get there, understand it and move on. 

John Burke
16 April 2018