Module: FAR6000-40  Studio Practice In Context

Credit Value: 40

Module Tutor: Rosemary Snell

Module Tutor Contact Details:  R.Snell@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module is designed to facilitate a sustained engagement with your own (individual or collaborative) art practice.  Through bespoke teaching and learning strategies you will be supported to communicate your ideas authoritatively informed by your synthesized and detailed contextual research and subject knowledge.  Through increasingly ambitious risk taking, sustained analytical thinking and evaluation you will be encouraged to develop a body of finely tuned experimental material, contextual and theoretical research. 

2. Outline syllabus:

This module is studio centred and is designed to enable students to sustain an in depth material enquiry supported through their effective and proactive engagement with the relevant technical workshops and expertise.  

Studio based critiques with visiting artists from relevant` disciplines will promote an advanced ability to critically reflect on the problems and strengths in your work informed by an authoritative subject knowledge and understanding.  

One to one tutorials are key to the teaching and learning philosophy of the discipline and you are expected to proactively engage in this reflective dialogue.  Group tutorials or discussions are also central to this module and your engagement in this peer learning is seen as essential to the generosity and energy of the level 6 community.     

Testing out possibilities for the works presentation beyond the studio will be essential to your developing understanding of strategies for relevant display and/or dissemination and necessary to the planning for your final exhibition in the following semester.  

You will continue to attend, and critically 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 an authoritative form determined by you and reflect the nature of your own enquiry.  It should evidence a depth of systematic research and analysis of key artists and debates pertinent to your art practice.    

At the end of the module you will present your work in a formal talk and visual presentation to a group of peers.  In advance of this presentation a group tutorial will support you to offer an advanced articulation of your enquiry and a synthesised contextual account of your working practice.  

Talks and workshops from professionals from the field will support your engagement with relevant professional development skills, information and resources.  A symposium with a range of invited alumni will offer the opportunity for you to see the career paths previous graduates from the course have taken and engage in an open and informative dialogue around the strategies they have used. 

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 behaviours 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 specialized, advance 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 works 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: CW

• Description: You will present all of the art works, (experimental) development work and contextual research realized during this module in your studio space in an accessible and coherent way.    You will offer a reflective, verbal analysis of the work in the form of a summative assessment tutorial.   

  % Weighting: 70

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: You will present a formal verbal and visual presentation of your practice and its context to a small audience of your peers

• % Weighting: 30