Fine Art BA (Hons) DIntS / DPS

What you'll study

Our Fine Arts degree aims to provide a supportive and intellectually stimulating environment through which to facilitate your acquisition of advanced practical and critical skills in contemporary fine art practice.

This is achieved by embedding the development of core practical skills – ranging across traditional and new media, 2D and 3D forms, analogue and digital processes – within an innovative and conceptually challenging curriculum.

This is supported by a core art history and visual culture lecture series, which facilitates an understanding of diverse contexts for art production and consumption (within the studio and beyond) and fosters a critical engagement with art’s historical, theoretical, cultural, political, social and ethical dimensions.

The information below reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. Updates may be made on an annual basis and revised details will be published through Programme Specifications ahead of each academic year. Please see Terms and Conditions of Study for more information.

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Final year

Year 1 is introductory and experimental, allowing students to explore and develop a range of skills with drawing as a central core of activity. Students are also introduced to the range of workshop practices in the School, to explore different approaches to contemporary Fine Art practice. This is underpinned by a rigorous introduction to contemporary art practice, art history, theory and research skills.

Developing Fine Art Practice Core

Developing Fine Art Practice

Drawing: Discourses and Debates Core

Drawing: Discourses and Debates

Introduction to Fine Art Core

Introduction to Fine Art

Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art and Design Core

Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art and Design

Year 2 is developmental, allowing you to build upon your skills and experiment with the techniques of your choice. In combination with this experimentation, you are introduced to key contemporary concepts, historical practices and art theories to enable you to locate and develop critical discourses on your practice.

Contemporary Art and Aesthetics Core

Contemporary Art and Aesthetics

Locating Fine Art Practice Core

Locating Fine Art Practice

Reflective Fine Art Practice Core

Reflective Fine Art Practice

19th Century Bodies Optional

19th Century Bodies

Arts Management Optional

Arts Management

This module covers a range of issues related to arts management including: the economic and political landscape for the arts and creative industries, careers in arts management, funding for the arts, establishing and running an arts-based organisation, arts programming, curating, audience and customer development, finance and fundraising, marketing, time management and project management.

Costume Design Optional

Costume Design

This module aims for the student to gain both theoretical knowledge of the function and historical development of theatre costume, and practical understanding of the creative process of design and making.

Creative Dissent: Protest, Activism and Art Optional

Creative Dissent: Protest, Activism and Art

This module identifies and addresses the central concepts, terminologies and debates concerning the relationship between art, activism and politics within society through a series of 20th-century and contemporary case studies. Be part of an online blogging community, work collaboratively and develop a reflexive approach to establishing your own perspective on socially engaged and activist forms of cultural practice.

Elephants and Engines: An Introduction to Creative Writing Optional

Elephants and Engines: An Introduction to Creative Writing

This module will introduce you to techniques for writing fiction and poetry. These include imagery, character and location - allowing you to write in whatever form or genre you wish, and on any subject matter. Practical workshops and examples from contemporary literature will help you to write, and to develop your writing strengths.

Fashion Theory Optional

Fashion Theory

This module will introduce and critically examine some of the main theories of fashion. It will identify and survey modernist and post-modernist theories of the nature of fashion as well as of the production, meaning and consumption of fashion.

From Print to Digital: Publishing Revolutions Optional

From Print to Digital: Publishing Revolutions

This module provides multiple perspectives on publishing and the spread of ideas through print and the digital in society, and on key concepts and ideas from the publishing world. It traces significant changes that have taken place in the book trade since the invention of printing to the digital revolution and to explore the challenges and opportunities arising from these changes.

Introduction to Multimodality Optional

Introduction to Multimodality

How do we communicate through images and what is the relationship between visual and verbal text strategies? The aim of the module is to introduce students to the study of texts that are created not just by using verbal language.

Material Culture Optional

Material Culture

Optional module taught by Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies, focusing on the concept of physical and virtual objects. The ideas of consumption and possession are explored, including the notion of the body as a material thing and the nature of gift and exchange.

Non-verbal Communication: Body Adornment and New Technologies Optional

Non-verbal Communication: Body Adornment and New Technologies

This module aims for students to develop an appreciation of body objects in life, art, design and drama, as well as gaining understanding and knowledge of the communicative roles of wearable artefacts and the relationships they can have with the human body.

Philosophy, Literature and the Arts Optional

Philosophy, Literature and the Arts

On this module you will read and discuss some of the key ideas in philosophy that are central to literary study and theory, and to the discussion of art and its role in our lives and societies. We will be examining these alongside a selection of literary texts and visual art (sculpture, painting and photography) which pose, incorporate or illustrate philosophical ideas and questions.

Word and Image: Verbo-visual Exchange in Art and Literature Optional

Word and Image: Verbo-visual Exchange in Art and Literature

This module examines innovative exchanges between word and image in visual art and literature across a range of media. It develops analytical skills through the close visual and textual analysis of works drawn from a wide variety of historical periods and genre.

African American Culture Optional

African American Culture

On this module you will explore the complex formal and political questions raised by African American cultural expression produced between 1845 and the present. We will study a wide range of forms and media - literary, cinematic and musical - situating these in their shifting historical contexts, from the nineteenth-century American South to the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.

The final year is focused on using your accumulated skills and experience to develop your independent practice as you work towards the degree show exhibition. You will also have the opportunity to extend your academic portfolio through a dissertation or research report.

Fine Art Practice Final Project Core

Fine Art Practice Final Project

Route A

Resolving Fine Art Practice

Resolving Fine Art Practice

Art and Design Dissertation

Art and Design Dissertation

Route B

Consolidating Fine Art Practice

Consolidating Fine Art Practice

Fine Arts Research Report

Fine Arts Research Report

Programme specification

Module specification