Course and Module Catalogue

Building on knowledge gained in the first year, this module develops your ability to understand and engage with a range of visual, oral and written contexts informing contemporary practice. You will reflect on issues emerging in the studio and situate your own work within wider critical and cultural debates. Lectures, … For more content click the Read More button below.

Throughout the module, you will undertake small-scale tasks designed to build skills and confidence writing in academic and creative formats. These will be gathered into the research portfolio.  A range learning of experiences will include illustrated lectures, focused studio seminars, and individual or collaborative study tasks. Workshops and seminars will … For more content click the Read More button below. The course will include workshops from the Academic Skills Tutors, the School’s academic librarian.

The syllabus is structured to develop your ability to become informed practitioners, able to adopt applied and critical approaches to contemporary practice and its implications. Knowledge and understanding of appropriate cultural and historical theories will enable you to contextualise aesthetic judgements in the studio and demonstrate them in a range … For more content click the Read More button below. Term 1 Defining Concepts Term 1 involves selective examination of historical, cultural and aesthetic concepts which define, reinforce or challenge current art practices. These will be contextualised by making explicit the theoretical, visual or technological influences at work in contemporary art and how they are related through practice and criticism. This will be achieved by selective study of the themes, issues and debates evident in the visual arts today. References will be made to philosophers, cultural theorists, writers, artists, illustrators and others whose ideas have shaped, questioned or influenced visual practices. Term 2 Researching Contexts You will be introduced to a range of applied methods of enquiry appropriate to practitioners, aimed to advance your skills as researchers. These will involve academic and creative formats for the presentation of knowledge and understanding and give you the opportunity to practise a variety of forms and conventions in art writing and criticism.  These might include critical reviews; positioning statements; library research; thematic quotations and bibliographical references; textual and image analyses; studio interviews; creative writing, blogs etc. Skills’ workshops will assist you to plan, structure, present and evaluate your writing with appropriate awareness that style and format implicates a particular audience or intention.

Knowledge and understanding of the traditions, issues and criticism informing contemporary practices in art and illustrationAbility to articulate the contexts in which theory informs and situates personal practiceInitiative and skills to plan, articulate and evaluate knowledge and use evidence to communicate in writing a coherent academic argument or creative response.Ability … For more content click the Read More button below.