Safety and environmental protection in the arts

With the recognition that there are inherent occupational and environmental hazards in the visual arts comes the challenge of finding suitable ways to educate future artists, provide for regulatory compliance and help reduce the potential for accidents and injuries in the studio. Owing to the diversity of activities, products and processes used in the visual arts, meeting this challenge is not simple and requires more than one approach. At Dartmouth College, part of our approach has been to develop a mastery-based training program that covers the fundamentals of occupational and environmental safety in the studio arts.

Safety and Environment in the Arts is the outcome of collaboration between the College's Studio Art faculty, its students and the Office of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS). The program provides a basic introduction to EHS issues in the studio, satisfies a number of occupational and environmental regulations, and provides a foundation on which each faculty member then gives studio-specific information. At a minimum, all students are provided with consistent information across several disciplines using a web-based program that is accessible at all times. At the end of the module, a brief test helps to measure comprehension. A separate administrative interface makes record keeping easy.