Rationale:

Visual Arts has a significant role within the curriculum through providing learning opportunities designed to encourage students to understand the visual arts, including the different kinds of creative works they, and others, make.

Visual Arts places great value on the development of students’ intellectual and practical autonomy, reflective action, critical judgement and understanding of art in artmaking and in critical and historical studies of art. Visual Arts plays an important role in the social, cultural and spiritual lives of students. It offers a wide range of opportunities for students to develop their own interests, to be self-motivated and active learners who can take responsibility for and continue their own learning in school and post-school settings.

Visual Arts fosters interest and enjoyment in the making and studying of art. Visual Arts builds understanding of the role of art, in all forms of media, in contemporary and historical cultures and visual worlds. In contemporary societies many kinds of knowledge are increasingly managed through imagery and visual codes and much of students’ knowledge is acquired in this way. Visual Arts empowers students to engage in visual forms of communication. The subject of Visual Arts serves to facilitate an interpretation and organisation of such information.

Through effective teaching and learning, students’ knowledge of the visual arts can become increasingly complex, more reflective and authoritative over time. This syllabus encourages students to become informed, interested and active citizens as participants in, and consumers of, the visual arts and contemporary culture. It encourages the creative and confident use of technologies including traditional and contemporary artforms and emerging applications in Information and Communication Technologies and digital media.

The content of Visual Arts provides opportunities for students to investigate the field of visual arts in complex and rich ways. Opportunities to investigate practice in the visual arts contribute to students’ creative and interpretive achievements and the works they produce. These opportunities lead to greater understanding of the field of art through critical and historical studies. Such a focus also offers practical and theoretical insights into some of the post-schooling opportunities available to students, in tertiary, vocational and world of work settings.

The conceptual framework proposes ways to understand and investigate relations between and amongst the agencies of the artist – artwork – world – audience. These functions or agencies when considered in the light of the structural, subjective, postmodern and cultural frames generate content for making and studying artworks.

The syllabus identifies the structural, subjective, postmodern and cultural frames as a basis for understanding the visual arts. Each frame represents a different assumption about the visual arts and provides the grounds for addressing questions related to artistic meaning and value. The frames offer a basis for practical choice and alternative grounds for investigating ideas in art. Each frame provides alternative ways to examine and explore the world as content and its artistic and aesthetic representation. The frames are not intended to be exhaustive nor final but are redefined and unfold over time.

The knowledge, understanding, skills and values gained from the Visual Arts Years 7–10 Syllabus assist students in building conceptual, practical and critical skills. These can be applied to the diverse fields of art, design and other contexts including employment, enterprise and pathways of learning.

Aim:

The aim of the Visual Arts Years 7–10 Syllabus is to enable students to:

• develop and enjoy practical and conceptual autonomy in their abilities to represent ideas in the visual arts

• understand and value the different beliefs that affect meaning and significance.

Objectives:

Knowledge, Understanding and Skills

Students will develop knowledge, understanding and skills:

• to make artworks informed by their understanding of practice, the conceptual framework and the frames

• to critically and historically interpret art informed by their understanding of practice, the conceptual framework and the frames.

Values and Attitudes

Students will value and appreciate:

• their engagement in the practice of the visual arts and understand how the visual arts, as a field of practice and understanding, is subject to different interpretations.

Content:

Content is organised in three broad areas as it connects with artmaking and critical and historical interpretations and explanations of art. These areas are:

• Practice

• the Conceptual Framework

• the Frames.

Practice relates to students’ artmaking and critical and historical studies of art. Practice describes artistic activity demonstrating the ability to make suitable choices from a repertoire of knowledge and skills. Practice respects the different views that circulate and are exchanged in and about the visual arts.

The Conceptual Framework identifies the functional and intentional relations of the artist, artwork, world and audience as the agencies of the artworld.

The Frames – subjective, cultural, structural and postmodern – account for different points of view, values and belief in and about the visual arts.