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University of Kent / ARTS STUDIO
THE KENT
EXPERIENCE
By choosing Kent, you are deciding to become part of one of
the UK’s leading universities. Kent has an excellent academic
reputation and you learn with some of the most influential
thinkers in your field. Your ideas and opinions are listened to
and you are encouraged to improve your knowledge and
widen your experience by attending open lectures, readings
and workshops; visiting exhibitions; and seeing fringe
theatre, dance, comedy and independent films.
Kent is highly rated by its students. In the 2010
National Student Survey, 87% of our students
were overwhelmingly satisfied with the quality of
their courses, while in the Times Higher
Education Student Experience Survey, Kent was
ranked 15th. We also do well in independent
university guides; for example in The Guardian
University Guide 2011 Kent was ranked 27th in
the UK.
The School of Arts has a presence on Kent’s
Medway and Canterbury campuses, with Event
and Experience Design, Fine Art and Music
based at Medway, and Drama, Film and History
& Philosophy of Art at Canterbury.
ARTS AT
CANTERBURY
The Canterbury campus is built on 300 acres of
parkland and is just 30 minutes’ walk from
Canterbury city centre. It is self-contained and
includes student accommodation, a library,
sports centre, theatre, nightclub, cinema, places
to eat, bars and shops. The student community
is made up of around 16,000 students from
around the world, at last count there were 125
nationalities represented on campus, which gives
the campus a very cosmopolitan feel.
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The School’s home is the RIBA Award
winning Jarman Building (named after artist
and filmmaker Derek Jarman) and built at the
heart of the Canterbury campus. It has
professional standard drama and film
production studios, including multi-user and
individual digital editing suites, as well as
teaching rooms, social spaces, Studio 3 (its
own gallery), and a centre for postgraduate
students.
The School plays a major part in the
thriving arts scene on campus, working closely
with the on-campus Gulbenkian Theatre and
Cinema, and staging international art
exhibitions, by artists such as Henri Fantin-
Latour, Frank Auerbach, Humphrey Ocean,
Tracey Emin, the Chapman Brothers, James
Barry and Ana Maria Pacheco, as well as our
annual student show.
The campus also has two theatres, the 113-
seat Aphra Theatre (a courtyard-type gallery
theatre space) and the Lumley Theatre, a
flexible and adaptable white room space. In
Eliot College there is an additional rehearsal
studio, a sound studio, a theatre design suite
and a darkroom used by students studying
photography. Students across the School take
advantage of our well-equipped construction
workshop.
In the neighbourhood
Canterbury is a historic city, with a
cosmopolitan atmosphere as befits Britain’s
closest city to continental Europe. It has a
unique charm, with ancient and modern sitting
comfortably together and there are plenty of
specialist shops, as well as many restaurants,
pubs and bars.
Canterbury is a cultural city with a strong
focus on the arts. There are a number of
galleries and the annual Canterbury Festival
attracts thousands of visitors. The city is also
home to the Marlowe Theatre, which hosts
national touring productions of West End shows
and attracts top artists from the worlds of
dance, music, comedy, drama, ballet and
opera.
Getting around
Canterbury is only 56 miles from London on the
M2/A2 and high-speed trains run regularly
between Canterbury West and London St
Pancras and take under an hour. Regular trains
also run to and from London Victoria, Charing
Cross, Waterloo East and London Bridge –
journey time is approximately 90 minutes.
You can also take the Eurostar from Ashford
or Ebbsfleet to arrive in Paris or Brussels in less
than two hours. The Channel ports are less than
20 miles away, and it is only 30 minutes’ drive to
the Channel Tunnel at Folkestone.