Autumn, Term 1
Experimental Photographic Practices (20 credits)
This unit will introduce you to the course through a series of practice-based workshops that aim to expand your approaches to creating, curating and publishing photographic images.
You’ll be introduced to key production facilities and challenged to respond creatively to a series of short briefs, resulting in the development of a portfolio and a presentation of your workshop responses.
Contemporary Photographic Debates (20 credits)
This unit will introduce you to contemporary theoretical debates and their relevance to your individual practice. You’ll engage with a wide range of source material including texts, books, podcasts, documentaries and film, and draw on primary source material in the form of exhibition visits, studio visits and insights from guest speakers.
This knowledge will enable you to take part in a student-run symposium and produce a piece of writing.
Spring, Term 2
Collaborative Unit (20 credits)
The collaborative unit enables you to work with other students on the course, from across the College, and with external partners. You’ll focus on building the professional and entrepreneurial knowledge and skills needed for developing a sustainable practice on graduation.
Pathway option unit (40 credits)
This unit will develop your specific interests in:
Expanded Photographic Practices
You’ll begin to develop a body of practice-based work for a work-in-progress exhibition at the end of the unit which will also be the foundation for your major project. Workshops, lectures, and tutorials will develop your understanding of photography as an expanded practice, and will also support your individual enquiry and project development.
OR
Curation Practices
You’ll begin to develop a curatorial project that will be the foundation for your major project. You’ll have the option to curate your own work, work from students on the Expanded Photographic Practice pathway, collections held by UAL, or with external collections. Workshops, lectures and tutorials will develop your understanding of curation within institutional and freelance frameworks, along with the creative, theoretical and practical skills needed to work as a curator.
OR
Publishing Practices
You’ll begin to develop a publishing project that will be the foundation for your major project. You’ll have the option to publish your own work, student work from the Expanded Photographic Practice pathway, collections held by UAL or external collections. Workshops, lectures and tutorials will develop your understanding of publishing within institutional frameworks and freelance self-publishing strategies, and you’ll develop the creative, theoretical and practical skills needed to work as a publisher.
Summer, Term 3
Dissertation (20 credits)
You’ll write a dissertation that provides the contextual and theoretical underpinning for your Major Project, evidencing your research within a chosen individual area of enquiry.
Throughout the unit, you’ll develop the writing skills needed for professional contexts such as funding applications; creative contexts such as writing about your work or the work of others; and academic contexts such as PhD study. You’ll then present your final research and dissertation in a student-led, public symposium.
Major Project (60 credits)
In this unit, you’ll develop the project initiated in your pathway option unit. After identifying an ambition for your project, you’ll be supported to consider how it will exist in the world beyond the College, with your degree show used as a staging post as you progress towards your final external outcome.
You’ll be able to work individually or collaboratively on your project, with opportuntiies for cross-pathway collaborations.
