Module: MCO6108-20 Exhibitions and Public Audiences

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Bethany Lamont

Module Tutor Contact Details: b.lamont@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module explores the emerging trend across the arts and cultural sectors of using arts curation practices to communicate and inspire social change to public audiences. It develops a key employability skill in media curation - enabling students to understand how curation practices can be used to communicate complex, challenging and socially progressive ideas to diverse groups of audiences. The module thereby considers the continuing cultural function of an exhibition / event as a communication tool, particularly in a post-digital world of online interaction and user engagement. Students will be exposed to a range of contemporary politically motivated media exhibitions, developing their skills in how to harness visual communication techniques to engage different demographics and inspire particular kinds of social actions.

Working towards the conception, curation and running of an exhibition across the module, students will first produce a Press Pack (50%) of promotional materials to market and promote the forthcoming exhibition. Students will then work in groups to put on an Exhibition (50%) to a public audience (held at a university space such as Locksbrook Road or The Studio), made up of selected artifacts of past student work produced at Levels 4, 5 and 6. As part of the exhibition process, students will also conduct audience evaluation in order to better understand the impact of their work.

2. Outline syllabus: 

● Module introduction

● Defining exhibitions for social change

● Approaches to arts curation 1

● Approaches to arts curation 2

● Developing an exhibition

● Promoting an exhibition

● Evaluating an exhibition

● Case studies: cultural appropriation

● Case studies: whiteness and slavery

● Case studies: gender and popular culture

● Case studies: digital spaces and mental health

● Curated showcase of exhibitions

3. Teaching and learning activities: 

Lectures will introduce students to the latest developments in media curation practices across creative sectors such as art, heritage and entertainment. The module enables students to define and conceptualise curation practices as a mode of media communication - affording particular kinds of cultural response and meaning. Lectures draw on research from the fields of art, cultural studies and performance studies, exploring cutting-edge case studies as well as establishing key principles needed to develop, promote and evaluate an exhibition. The module benefits from engagement with local cultural partners, offering a field trip to a local exhibition in order to immerse students in practices, impacts and challenges of media curation.

Students will work in groups throughout the module, defining a project topic relevant to the Media Communications degree that can be adapted into a curated exhibition. First, students will design a co-created exhibition, agreeing on theme, target audience and location, before applying curation principles from the module to formulate a real exhibition using selected previous assessment items from Levels 4, 5 and 6. Next, students produce a Pack Pack (50%), consisting of a range of promotional materials in order to market the exhibition to the required audience. Finally, students will organise and run their curated exhibition at a chosen site (50%), before evaluating the impact of the exhibition by conducting bespoke audience evaluation research.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description:  Press Pack (including curation strategy, equivalent to 2500 words)

• % Weighting: 50

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description:  Exhibition (including audience evaluation, equivalent to 2500 words)

• % Weighting: 50