Module: FAR5001-40 Studio Practice Encounters and Audiences

Level: 5

Credit Value: 40

Module Tutor: Camilla Wilson

Module Tutor Contact Details: C.Wilson@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

Description of module:

This module is designed to support the continued development of your own (individual or collaborative) art practice. You will be encouraged to develop a body of focused investigative material, contextual and theoretical research and through an ability to reflect, analyse and decision make informed by this relevant subject understanding you will develop these investigations towards the realisation of artworks and the presentation of a selection of this work to an audience. The module culminates in a self-initiated off site project that should advance your career development opportunities.

2.Outline syllabus:

Through increasingly ambitious and self-led practical investigations you will extend your focused formal and material understanding. One to one tutorials with a variety of tutors are a fundamental part of the teaching and learning philosophy within this module encouraging an articulate, critical and cumulative understanding of your own practice and the debates that inform it.

Through your proactive engagement with specialised practical workshops there is the opportunity to refine, extend and nurture the technical skills necessary for the development of your more specific enquiry, encouraging critical thinking

Group critiques will require you to continue to test out ways to present the work you are making to an audience and through your expanded critical evaluation of this process you will resolve some strategies for the work’s display.

Through your selective attendance at relevant practice-led workshops you will be exposed to a range of specific practical, theoretical and professional processes, methods and ideas. Through this learning and through your own material and conceptual research this module will support your ability to speculate and risk take and identify and evaluate the integrated knowledge and understanding established through these processes. As the module draws to an end you will be supported to apply this learning to the development and realisation of art works and the presentation of this work to an audience in the form of a selected exhibition.

You will continue to attend, and reflect on the lectures by a range of visiting artist from a variety of disciplines supporting your expanded knowledge of the range of processes, methods and ideas adopted by other artists. Your contextual research will take a form determined by you and reflect the nature of your own enquiry. It should evidence a depth of research and analysis of key artists and debates pertinent to your evolving art practice. Talks and workshops from the core team, visiting artists and other professionals from the field will support your extended knowledge and engagement with relevant professional development skills and you will apply this learning to the planning, development and engagement with a relevant off site project, the form of which will be determined by you and driven by your wider career development ambitions. This project should include some engagement with an audience, community or public.

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

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Contextual research and developmental/experimental work

• % Weighting: 80%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Visual Document

• % Weighting: 20%