Year 1
Unit 1 - Introduction to Fine Art
This unit is an introduction to your course, the college and the university.
Unit 2 - Establishing practice
- Methods and materials workshops will help you gain specialist technical knowledge.
- Seminars on how professional artists live and work in the context of an art world increasingly shaped by postcolonial and feminist discourses.
- To be encouraged to consider how fine art can be thought of as a social research activity inspired by the wider world and the creative imagination.
- To produce a research file comprised of written and research tasks, alongside reflections on talks and events.
- To be supported in the development of artistic ideas from questions you have about the wider world, images that interest you, subjects you’ve read about and your own identity.
- To generate new ideas and become more deeply engaged with your work by making art that emerges from your fascination and curiosity.
Unit 3 - Ideas into practice
You will be asked to identify which specific skills and strategies help you in making and understanding your work. You will be thinking about questions such as how your work is made, how it begins to communicate and how you might introduce or discuss it.
- Group crits will develop your expertise in how to talk about art.
- To explore writing and research through workshops and group exercises.
- To present and share ideas and pictures shaping your imagination to your peers.
- Workshops and seminars about techniques of artistic display, curatorial themes and audience relationships.
- To take part in a cross-course fine art exhibition.
Unit 4 - Activating practice
This unit has 2 parts. The first uses degree show outcomes as an opportunity for reflective critical and contextual writing. The second part asks students to imagine an external project outside the college’s studio environment.
- Lectures on the contexts in which art is made and shown. They will look at examples of how proposals around the world are realised for specific locations and exhibitions.
- To develop a proposal for an external context.
- To be supported through tutorial and group discussions.
- To write a review of a selected BA Fine Art work on public display.
- Writing workshops to support you by looking at diverse styles and purposes of reviewing art exhibitions.
Year 2
Unit 5 - Working for a context
This unit is about re-establishing your practice whilst also progressing your research methodologies. It is about exploring the relationship between fine art and sculpture in more depth.
- To produce work for a group crit.
- An introduction to strategies for collaboration and the ethical considerations that accompany working with others.
- To create and present an artist’s manifesto that expresses the context for your practice.
- To reflect on your progress through self-evaluation.
Unit 6 - Collaborative and collective practices
This unit aims to introduce you to different ways in which collaborative working can focus and enhance your own creative strengths. This unit has 3 core purposes:
- To engage with fellow students with different practices and interests in a collaborative project.
- To engage with external audiences, participants or institutions to consider new contexts for your work.
- To develop your creative attributes to enable you to take on future challenges in a variety of contexts.
Unit 7 - Refining practice
- To continue to develop your creative practice.
- Seminars and reading groups introduce you to the relationships between fine art and ideas about society, identity, politics and the environment.
- To critically contextualise an artist’s work through written essay or presentation, based on relevant texts, theories or ideas.
- To take part in a group exhibition with your peers.
Unit 8 - Audiences
- To create and present an artist’s manifesto that expresses the context for your practice.
- To participate in workshops that will explain and help you plan for your third year.
- To prepare a detailed proposal for your third year.
- To work alongside third year students helping with degree show outcomes.
Year 3
Unit 9 - Practice and articulation
- To develop and produce work for a public audience.
- To produce a piece of research that can be produced either in written form, by presentation, or through a live project/work placement.
- Art and its audiences programme of seminars will help you manage artistic life after art school and how to apply for postgraduate study.
Unit 10 - Practice and presentation
- To present in the degree show, a multi-platform public-facing display of work.
- An introduction to possible national and international progression routes.
- Workshops, seminars, tutorials and lectures on approaches to curation, audiences, methods of display, materials and the ethics of representation.
- To produce written work or a digital portfolio that presents your work and ideas.
- To be encouraged to proactively engage with communities within and outside of the art school to build sustainable and ethical working relationships.
Optional Diploma between year 2 and 3
Between year 2 and 3 you can opt to undertake the Diploma in Professional Studies or the Diploma in Creative Computing. Whilst these Diplomas are an optional aspect of the course, they are designed as an integrated and assessed part of your journey through the course.
