Silversmithing, Goldsmithing & Jewellery

Course content - 2017 entry

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3

In the first year, you'll be introduced to the University and the technical workshops and facilities available to you. On the course you’ll learn the technical and conceptual skills that will give you a solid foundation from which to explore your areas of specialist activity.

• View the programme specification for 2016 entry
• View the summary specification for 2017 entry

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change.

Course modules

• Maker, Materials and Process 1

  The purpose of this unit is to introduce you to the act of making as a key skill and means of experimental research through the exploration of materials and processes.

• Maker, Materials and Process 2

  This unit builds on the previous one with you extending your vocabulary of material knowledge through the acquisition of a different but related set of material skills and processes. You'll test and further develop skills and knowledge from inception to resolution within given silversmithing, goldsmithing and jewellery practice brief contexts, increasingly synthesising design processes of research, ideas generation, iterative exploration, documentation, evaluation, resolution and communication at a fundamental level.

• Practice, Process and Concept

  The purpose of this unit is for you to develop creative responses to designing and making, reflecting on and using experiences of processes and materials learned in previous units and employing new skills learnt in the unit.

• Contextual Frameworks

  Introduces you to a range of historical and contemporary contexts that serve to locate crafts and design practices within wider social and cultural frameworks, and to promote contextual research as a fundamental aspect of creative practice. Through a series of illustrated thematic lectures, the unit will articulate a range of theoretical and practice-based positions in order to expose the rich diversity of approaches to crafts and design, and to consider aesthetic decisions in relation to wider contextual fields.

The second year focus is on finding your own specialist way of working and you’ll be encouraged and supported to start working more independently. During this year you may also have the opportunity to complete an industry work placement or even study abroad.

• View the programme specification for 2016 entry
• View the summary specification for 2017 entry

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change.

Course modules

• Practice Exploration 1

  You'll explore individual design identity and interest through engagement with design project briefs. Briefs require consideration from inception to resolution and incorporate all stages of the design process.
  

• Practice Exploration 2

  You'll further extend and develop your exploration of individual design identity and interest. This is undertaken through engagement with selected project brief/s set within specific contextual themes and is seen as an impetus to engage in speculative and conceptually led design in the production of Silversmithing, Goldsmithing and Jewellery.

• Establishing Practice

  You'll define your own patterns of study and consolidate their creative and conceptual practice. This unit provides, within a defined contextual framework, an opportunity to develop work in response to your own conceptual concerns and personal direction.

• Contextual Perspectives

  Introduces you to a range of contextual, theoretical and critical perspectives that encourage an involved and insightful appreciation of crafts and design practices as expressions of meaning and value. With an emphasis on crafts and design as discourse, and drawing on a range of research methods and thematic content, the unit seeks to highlight relationships between creativity, production, mediation and consumption, promoting analysis and
  evaluation as essential aspects of creative research and resolution, and encouraging a positional approach to studio practice that identifies objects as experiences.

• Study Abroad (optional)

  Optional unit that will allow you to spend a period of time in an overseas education institution.

The third year will see you achieve a greater level of independence with self-managed research, study and practice, resulting in a final major project and a written dissertation.

• View the programme specification for 2016 entry
• View the summary specification for 2017 entry

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change.

Course modules

• Practice Portfolio

  This unit primes you in complete readiness for constructive engagement with your future prospects upon graduation. It helps to facilitate the transition from student to early stage professional practitioner or adjacent destination.

• Practice Position 1

  You'll commence framing an individual Silversmithing, Goldsmithing and Jewellery practice position. In order to achieve this two routes of pursuit are offered (i) research / exploratory prototyping and testing (ii) research to resolution.

• Practice Position 2

  You'll finalise framing an individual Silversmithing, Goldsmithing and Jewellery practice position and realise a self-initiated, graduate major project that realises individual potential.

• Contextual Research and Critical Reflection

  The purpose of this unit is for you to conceive, develop and construct a personally meaningful portfolio of contextual research that informs, augments and reflects upon practice, towards the provision of structured narratives that critically engage with a range of contextual and theoretical frameworks and serve to support the positioning of individual practice in relation to past, present and possible future endeavours.

• View the programme specification for 2016 entry
• View the summary specification for 2017 entry

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change.

Course modules