Module: FAR6002-60  Studio Practice Exhibition

Credit Value: 60

Module Tutor: Rosemary Snell

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

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module supports you to consolidate your own (independent or collaborative) art practice and apply your ambitious and inquisitive material, conceptual and theoretical enquiry to the realisation of your ideas, the development of artworks and the appropriate presentation of this work to an audience.  Bespoke teaching and learning strategies employed throughout the module will encourage you to sustain your systematic analytical thinking and making, informed through your subject knowledge, to plan towards the realisation of your works effective dissemination.    

2. Outline syllabus:

This module supports you to consolidate your own (independent or collaborative) art practice and apply your ambitious and inquisitive material, conceptual and theoretical enquiry to the realisation of your ideas, the development of artworks and the appropriate presentation of this work to an audience.  Bespoke teaching and learning strategies employed throughout the module will encourage you to sustain your systematic analytical thinking and making, informed through your subject knowledge, to plan towards the realisation of your works effective dissemination.     

Outline:  This module is studio centred and is designed to encourage an ambitious and inquisitive practical enquiry that refines the skills necessary to finalise a set of outcomes for presentation to an audience.  Studio based critiques will promote an advanced ability to critically reflect on the problems and strengths in your work informed by your understanding of Fine Art practices and debates.  

The robust testing out of possibilities for the works presentation will be essential to your understanding of strategies for the display and dissemination of your work and necessary to the realisation of your final exhibition.  Increasingly confident risk taking and problem solving through you intensive material and contextual inquiry will be crucial to the development of your work.  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.     

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 a synthesis of your understanding of the debates pertinent to your own art practice.    

Talks and workshops from professionals from the field will support your engagement with the relevant professional development skills necessary for success in continuing as an artist or moving into other related areas within the creative industries.  

These will include:

• Applying for funding, artists residencies and other survival strategies

• Managing a practice and self-employment

• Applying for further study

• Writing as an artist's statement

• Developing an effective website or digital presence

• Developing a CV

• Education, participation and alternative forms of practice beyond the studio

As part of the skills necessary for the dissemination of your work to a broader audience you will be supported to develop a coherent and accessible website that will include documentation of your work, a statement about your practice and a CV.  

As a culmination of this module you will apply and summarise the material, contextual and professional learning established throughout the course to the realisation of your degree show presentation.

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.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: You will present your contextual research and all of your developmental/experimental work from this module, along with an exhibition of selected artworks in your degree show presentation.  

• % Weighting: 85

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: You will present a website that will include documentation of your work, a statement about your practice and a cv. 

• % Weighting: 15