Fine Art

Content

The programme is undertaken in studio practice and in lectures, seminars and assignments in a sequence of distinct Units. Your study of fine art is undertaken through one of four broad pathways, as described below.

All pathways involve studio practice, critical and theoretical studies, and personal and professional development. Whatever the nature of the practice, you are required to develop your levels of research, initiative and responsibility for proposal and implementation of your own programme of study.

The programme is practice based and focuses on making and the development of ideas that constitute your artistic production. 'Production' takes place in many ways and places, including studios, workshops and off-site locations. Participation benefits you not only with the formal input of tutors but also with the informal interaction and awareness of the development of your peers occurring within a shared working environment. 'Studio practice' can mean site-specific work, film and video, live performance or installation as well as work actually made in 'a studio'.

Pathway details

There are four broad pathway options:

• 2-dimensional (2D)
• 3-dimensional (3D)
• 4-dimensional (4D)
• cross-dimensional (XD)

These create a focus for sustained critical engagement and enable both specialisation and the development of interdisciplinary communities of practice.

The Pathways support students working broadly according to these descriptions, but access to any workshop facilities in order to realise your studio work is not pathway dependent. Whilst you align yourself with a particular pathway, you are also encouraged to work and exchange ideas with those on other pathways and open up the possibility of working across boundaries. Cross-pathway 'communities of practice', for example in text-based practice, are encouraged as interests and directions develop.

Structure

The programme runs for 90 weeks full time over three years. It is divided into three Levels, (or Stages) each lasting 30 weeks.

Stage 1

The first stage provides an introduction from the perspective of your Pathway. From the beginning you are introduced to practical skills and processes, research and study skills, critical and discursive approaches; it is diagnostic and exploratory.

Stage 2

This is a pivotal period of development in which you begin to take increased responsibility for your learning and for self-directed work. More emphasis is placed on experimentation and risk in developing your ideas, conceptual strategies, research, and means of production. It also demands the refinement of appropriate technical skills.

Stage 3

This is a period of realisation that brings together your learning during the programme as a whole. It reflects your development as a contemporary practitioner and as far as possible engages you in the realities of personal responsibility and challenge that a career in the creative professions or further study at Masters level involves.

Critical and Theoretical Studies are embedded into the Units with studio practice and involve investigations into historical and contemporary critical theory through lectures, seminars, tutorials and independent research. You consider the historical and contemporary contexts of art and a broad range of critical debates relating to the form, content, value and meaning of art practices, and produce written assignments, leading to a dissertation in Stage 3. Your dissertation is balanced with your studio practice and focuses on an individual chosen topic and field of research that relates to your practice and locates it within a theoretical framework: it involves the development of a piece of documented research.