Module: FAR4002-40 Studio Practice: Investigation and Exploration

Level: 4

Credit Value: 40

Module Tutor: Jenny Dunseath

Module Tutor Contact Details: j.dunseath@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module is designed to support you to expand your independent working practice. Through increasingly confident exploration of materials methods and processes you will be encouraged to foster a more focused investigational approach to making and thinking. Through practice led workshops you will be exposed to a range of practical, theoretical and professional processes, methods and ideas and supported to apply this knowledge and understanding to the development of your own work and its presentation to an audience.

2.Outline syllabus:

This module is studio centred and the teaching and learning strategies employed throughout are designed to stimulate your effective use of this space and the workshops along with your ability to direct and reflect upon your own learning. Through studio based individual and group tutorials you will be encouraged to expand your material, contextual and theoretical research in relation to your own emerging interests. There will be a greater emphasis on your own ability to speculate, risk take, identify and evaluate the learning established through these processes in order to progress your own work.

Experimentation with a range of methods, materials and processes in order to extend your inquisitive practical and material enquiry remains key and like all the studio practice modules in the course the acquisition of new skills and the nurturing of established ones will be central and encouraged through an engagement with technical workshops and facilities.

One to one tutorials with a variety of tutors and group critiques with your peers are a fundamental part of the teaching and learning philosophy within this module. Through this dialogue you will be supported to present the methods, processes and outcomes you are exploring with a greater emphasis on your ability to reflect critically informed by your own emerging subject knowledge and understanding.

You will continue to attend, and reflect on the talks by the artists/practitioners who work with you on the course, along with lectures or workshops by other artists and professionals.

With an emphasis on where and how art is seen - it’s sites and audiences, you will document and analyse a number of current exhibitions/events. This self-led contextual research into the presentation of art along with a series of professional development lectures and workshops will inform your own participation in, and development of, an off-site exhibition or event, a record of which will be presented on your own website.

A series of small group practical workshops by emerging artists will focus on forms of Practice Beyond the Studio and introduce you to collaboration, participation and social engagement. These sessions will consider the ethical implications of these types of work and fine art practice more broadly

3.Teaching and learning activities:

The following list identifies the teaching and learning activities central to the subject. They reflect the bespoke nature of learning within the discipline of fine art. They will be delivered as either level specific or in certain cases with cross level content.

Module briefings and year group meetings: The module coordinator will meet the whole year group at regular intervals throughout this module. In these meetings key teaching and assessment processes will be outlined. These sessions will also provide a space for you to discuss and reflect on the course as a group.

Studio based individual and group tutorials: During this module you will meet with a tutor/s regularly to discuss and reflect upon your developing understanding and practical progress. These core tutorials will be timetabled and may be with a small group of peers or on your own. Peer led reflective dialogue will be central to the teaching and learning on this module. In addition to these timetabled core sessions you will be able to sign up for tutorials with a variety of tutors both from the team that teach on the course and from other visiting practitioners.

Critiques: Working as a small group, facilitated by a tutor, you will present your work to each other. These sessions will promote critical, reflective, constructive peer review exploring the content, context and the display of the work presented.

Academic facilitated workshop (practice/subject): Working in groups these sessions will be facilitated by an academic and take place in your studios. Theses sessions are designed to explore the concepts and debates within the discipline of Fine Art. They may take as a starting point an event, text or artworks or through more practical activities draw attention to the strategies, ideas and behaviors of other artists.

Technical workshop: These sessions will take place in the school workshops and be run by one of our team of technical demonstrators. They will not only introduce you to some of some key practical skills, how to work safely and confidently, but to the philosophy of the workshops as spaces to experiment, test out ideas and think through making. More specialised, advanced workshops will occur throughout the course and your engagement with them will be dependent on your developing ideas/enquiry.

Study trips: Scheduled visits to galleries and museums will play a key role in providing access to current practice and cultural debates. These visits will help you contextualize your own work.

Artists’/staff talks/ lectures: The team that work with you on the course will talk about their own working practice as artists/curators/writers/educators, they will talk about their work’s context and their own professional journeys. Visitors from a broad range of disciplines will give talks and lectures on their work and their professional trajectories.

Independent study: Working independently is central to the teaching and learning philosophy of a Fine Art course. Working in your studio, in the library or the workshops you will begin to develop and reflect upon the ideas, debates covered in the module

Professional practice lecture/workshops: These timetabled lectures and taught sessions will introduce, explore and refine relevant professional development skills.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description:

You will present all of the art works and (experimental) development work made during this module in your studio space in an accessible and coherent way.

You will keep a research folder to include:

• A reflective analysis of the staff talks and workshops

• Documentation and analysis of a number of relevant current exhibitions/events.

You will offer a reflective, verbal analysis of the work and research in the form of a summative assessment tutorial.

• % Weighting: 70%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: You will present work in an off-site exhibition. You will produce a visual document reflecting on your engagement in this off-site exhibition and reflect on the context, organisation and planning of it.

• % Weighting: 30%